Census Questions : Deciding What Counts in the ‘90s

Thirty minutes down bumpy highways from Washington’s glamorous agencies, the government keeps its head-counters hidden in drab brick offices built to serve as a military hospital.

It is here that plans are being readied for an exercise as vital to the American form of democracy as voting, and one that takes the mobilization needed for a small war.

The event is the once-a-decade attempt to crack Americans’ penchant for privacy and count every person and every household in the United States. The first census, in 1790, counted 3.9 million people (about the population of Los Angeles today) and cost the taxpayers a penny a head. Next spring, the 1990 census is expected to log statistics on about 250 million people, miss at least 2 million others and cost more than the yearly budgets of some states.

$2.6-Billion Project

At $2.6 billion, the 1990 census tab should run a little more than $10 a nose, more than double the per-capita bill when America’s statistical gauges were last reset, in 1980. Yet to demographers, researchers and many government officials, the rising cost is justified even if it is not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind.

Originally, the census was conducted for the purpose of allotting seats in the House of Representatives, and that will again be the first impact of the 1990 count. California should gain at least five seats; New York and Pennsylvania each will lose several. But the census has come to be valued less for its population counts--which can be predicted ahead of time within 1% or 2%--and more for what it says about the national condition.

Statistics collected in the 1990 census will be used by federal agencies to allocate more than $35 billion a year in aid to the states, and to pass on a similar amount to cities and towns. Advertising, marketing and the social sciences would not exist as they are today without the tons of free data the national census produces. The 1990 information will be culled from about 106 million questionnaires that will begin arriving in homes next March (earlier in Alaska, to beat the spring thaw).

In the first census, U.S. marshals showed up at each door to record the names of heads of households and to count white males both older and younger than 16, white females, “other free persons” and slaves. The marshals, who weren’t asked to venture into Indian territory or the sparsely settled wilderness, noted the answers on any paper they could lay their hands on.

The totals were sent to President George Washington and the completed forms were posted in two public places in each town. To prevent padding of the numbers, the Constitution also cleverly provided that taxes be apportioned according to population.

Twenty years later, the census began to record everyone in a household by name, and also began to collect data on taxes paid, crimes, schools, wages and the value of land holdings. In 1880, census takers took over the job from the marshals, and, for the first time, the answers were held as confidential.

Next year, most people will answer a basic, short form that asks for full name, sex, age, marital status, race and whether the person is of “Spanish or Hispanic origin.” Three to five questions will also be asked about the residence--the type of building, how many rooms, whether the property is rented or owned, and the rent or value of the home.

About one in six households will get a much longer questionnaire, of a type that will be used to estimate characteristics of the population in detail, from marriages and divorces to the number of vehicles per household in, say, Los Angeles.

For the first time, in 1990 the government will want to know if couples living together consider themselves “unmarried partners” or merely roommates. To reflect the realities of American home life, categories for stepchildren and children living with grandparents have been added.

Also for the first time, the census will ask about advanced degrees instead of simply asking how many years of school were completed. There will be new places to check off if the home is solar-heated and whether there is a second mortgage or home-equity loan.

Trucks and vans will be considered the same as automobiles for the first time, bowing to people of the West and South who complained that a pickup is a personal vehicle as much as any Buick or Chrysler.

Reflecting the tremendous surge of real estate prices in some regions, the 1990 forms have been revised so that the highest property value category is “$500,000 or over,” up from “$200,000 or over” in 1980. Even so, census officials expect squawks from states with depressed housing prices and areas where houses are often worth more. “We hear from Honolulu every census that the values are too low,” census official Bill Downs said.

Censuses draw great interest now that people realize their importance. More than 50 lawsuits were filed to challenge the 1980 census. The question about race has proven to be the most controversial one on the 1990 questionnaires.

The short form everyone receives will ask people to state whether they are white, black, American Indian, Eskimo or Aleut. There will also be a place for Asian and Pacific Islanders to describe themselves as belonging to one of nine groups, such as Chinese, Japanese, Filipino or Guamanian. Those who don’t feel they fit into any of the groups may write in their racial description of choice.

Census officials hoped to shorten the Asian section by asking Asians to write in their specific racial group. Some census experts said the change would enhance accuracy, but the move was fought by minority organizations who said it would produce less detailed information about the Asian peoples. Congress passed a bill to forbid any change in the Asian category, but President Reagan vetoed it. Nonetheless, the Census Bureau bowed to the pressure and agreed to use the same question it used in 1980.

Still, some people of mixed race complain there is no specific category in which they can be counted. The Census Bureau has long since dropped the turn-of-the-century minority categories of black, mulatto, quadroon (one black grandparent) and octoroon (an eighth black).

Ethnic background will be addressed on the longer questionnaire of more than 50 questions that will go to one in six households. It is only there that one can opt to be classified as Irish, Greek or Cajun.

The 1990 census will gather the least detail on household plumbing since 1940, when the first survey of housing conditions found that almost half of all homes lacked complete plumbing (a problem now largely confined to the rural South and Indian reservations).

For perhaps the first time, and only after considerable debate within the Census Bureau, “don’t know” will be an accepted answer to a census question on housing. The question asks people to estimate when their house was built. The answers are politically sensitive, because about $3 billion in community development disbursements are based largely on the age of housing. Census officials hope “don’t know” will be more useful than incorrect guesses.

The writing of a census question is a lengthy, combative process that begins when Census Bureau demographers or someone else in the government suggests a topic. Some ideas come from outside researchers and interest groups. For example, some “animal rights” groups and pet food companies pushed hard for a tally of household pets, but the government opted not to count pets again in this census.

Recommendations for questions are debated and pared down by the Office of Management and Budget, which is charged with easing the public’s burden of paper work. Many questions are left off, and many researchers disappointed. “Every one of the questions has its own constituency,” Downs said.

For 1990, the government will no longer ask about elevators, air conditioners, number of bathrooms or cooking fuel used--questions that went the way of earlier inquiries about who had radios, television sets and dishwashers.

Heating Query Dropped

The next census will not collect information on the type of furnace or other method of heating. “I’m sorry to see that one go,” Downs said. “I thought that was a pretty powerful quality indicator. If you don’t have central heat, you’re OK in Dade County (Fla.) but not in a lot of the country.”

The census will try to measure living conditions for the expanding elderly population. “That’s the demographic area of interest in the coming decade,” Downs said. The new questions ask if a person has any ailment that makes it difficult to shop, get to a doctor’s office or live alone. Another question tries, for the first time, to count living arrangements that include meals with the rent.

Over the years, changes in census questions serve as a marker of national maturity. The 1860 census was the last to count slaves, and found 3.9 million of them. The same year, there was a single census category for people who were “blind, idiotic, insane, paupers or convicts.” Later censuses counted homeless children in the group with paupers and prisoners.

In 1880, census takers counted livestock and guns owned by Indians and recorded their occupations, noting that “special attention is to be directed to reporting Medicine-man, as it is the only occupation among Indians resembling a profession in civilization.”

The 1910 census, in the midst of the biggest wave of legal immigration , recognized 42 principal foreign tongues spoken in the nation--including Basque, Syrian, Moravian, Yiddish, “Gypsy” and the less-known Wendish and Ruthenian. In 1990, language is mentioned only on the long form. People will be asked if they speak a language other than English at home, which language it is, and how well the person speaks English.

If someone does not want to be counted, he almost certainly can elude the counters. In 1980, census takers managed to miss half the residents of Wittenberg, Mo.--population 8. By law, illegal aliens are counted when they can be found, but not Americans living overseas, more than a million military and government personnel and their families.

Accuracy has always been lowest in the counting of illegals and poor blacks, but for 1990, census officials expect also to find cooperation declining among the public in general.

Peter Bounpane, assistant director of the Census Bureau, said respect for the census seems to be suffering because of the ever-increasing volume of unsolicited mail and a growing mistrust of prying surveys. In 1970, the first census to make serious use of the mails, 85% of those who were asked to return the form by mail did so. Last time, the return rate fell to 83%. Rehearsals for the 1990 count have led census officials to expect a cooperation rate of about 78%, a costly trend since for every 1% drop in participation, $5 million to $10 million extra must be spent to pay census-takers

Personnel Shortage Looms

Census officials also worry about recruiting the nearly 400,000 temporary workers who will be needed to visit households that don’t answer the mailed questionnaires, and to process returned forms.

Recruiters had trouble finding the 22,000 workers that were hired last year to compile and check addresses in preparation for the census. The labor shortage was most severe in the New England states, Virginia and many parts of California, where employment and wages are both relatively high.

In California alone, the numbers of personnel needed for next year are staggering. Census experts think there are about 10.7 million households in the state, and about 45,000 temporary workers will be hired in California to seek out difficult cases and staff a large processing center in San Diego. “You can’t just mail questionnaires to a nursing home and expect everybody to fill it out and send it back,” said John E. Reeder Jr., director of the Census Bureau’s California region.

For the first time, census workers will be paid by the hour instead of by piece rate, but the pay is only about $6 an hour and the jobs will last only four to six weeks. In 1980, the turnover was 100%.

Reeder said he has no idea where the California work force will come from if the unemployment rate remains low. “If we had trouble last year, when we only needed 1,900 workers, what happens next year, when we need 40,000?” he said.