Secrets of the City

This whole census “thang” has been a bit of black comedy.

Last week, we received a letter telling us we were going to receive a letter. This week, we (or at least some of us) received a letter. Hey, funny how that works.

Now… why the initial letter?

Apparently, it was PR. The U.S. Census Bureau figured it was worth the $45K investment just to let people know.

Bob Collins was on it immediately.

Total: $42.5 million (although I remain somewhat skeptical about the postage) to send you a letter to tell you you’re going to get another letter next week. Oh, and sending a postcard would’ve been $15.8 million cheaper.

The average person pays $13,000 in federal taxes per year. So it took the annual federal taxes of nearly 327 taxpayers to send you the letter.

Of course, later @BCollinsMN posted this tweet: “Whoops. Census Bureau now says cost of notification letter/postcard was $85 million. Yesterday: $45 million. “

And he had a hell of a time figuring out how the Census Bureau calculates that it would take $75 worth of work to get the forms from the — in this case — 6 percent of people who wouldn’t have sent it back, were it not for the letter.

“Census has a really great Facebook page,” tweets @BCollinsMN, “in which they actually answer questions people pose. Except for one, of course.”

Finally, he received this response:

Bob, it costs .42 when someone mails back the form, and about $57 / household if we have to send an enumerator to collect the response. For every 1% increase in mail response, there’s a savings of approx. $85 M. If mail response increases by 6%, savings would be about 6*$85M, or about $510M. This is standard “multiple contact strategy” and well-researched. Note that we are also sending a reminder postcard, and, for the first time, we are sending a replacement questionnaire to targeted areas with historically low response rates. Our research indicates these mailings more than pay for themselves.

Meanwhile, Sheila Regan reports that the Census Bureau is experiencing difficulty hiring people from underrepresented communities.

First of all, there’s the test, which is only offered in Spanish and English. While the test is not extremely difficult, a number of sources say it is loaded with trick questions that make it difficult for non-native speakers. Then there’s the fact that the census is not hiring non-citizens, except in very rare circumstances. Finally, an extensive background check that includes getting fingerprinted deters members of some communities from even applying.

And while that certainly isn’t comedy, Regan’s Facebook status update sure is: “Working on my second census article. But not filling out my form. Because I didn’t get one!”

Nice.

Those of us who have actually received our “real” Census forms might be able to cash in on some interesting incentives. Anybody know of any good ones? I saw a restaurant tweet offering census deals yesterday, but I can’t seem to find it. And I heard something about incentives for the homeless on the radio a few days ago — again, I can’t remember the details (and while, I realize I just shouldn’t mention them, I’m rather hoping you information-laden MNSpeakers can fill in the details below).

Fill out that form, folks. Having trouble? Swirlspice offers gay and/or multiracial couples tips on how to fill it out. Basically, if you feel married, then answer it like you’re married; and if you don’t feel married than answer it like you’re not. Tada! Does that count for hetero domestic partnerships, as well?

Indicating that you consider yourself to be married will help advocates quantify how many people would get married if they could, and thus how many people are currently disenfranchised by a lack of marriage equality. Indicating that you consider yourself to be unmarried partners helps advocates quantify how many lesbians and gays there actually are in the country, since there is no other way to indicate that on the census form.

I guess, hetero domestic partnerships should file as unmarried partners in order to indicate a lack of faith in the system and a rejection of church and state approval.

As for bi-racial couples: “the race of the household member who fills out the Census form determines the racial designation of a family in one of the Census’ major statistical tables. Given that people of color are often undercounted by the Census, couples or families may want to consider having a person of color identify as household member #1 when filling out the form for a family.”