Counting on an Accurate 2000 Census

Terrance Dunn smiled at the seventh-graders who raised their hands, hoping to be called upon to share their thoughts on the U.S. census.

“Are you children people too?” the teacher asked.

“Yes!” his two dozen students in the honor social studies class shouted back.

“Should you be counted?”

“YES!”

The Bancroft Middle School students’ interest in being included in the national head count in March is echoed by the federal government. The previous census 10 years ago missed about 2.1 million children nationwide--making up more than half of the U.S. residents believed uncounted.

Such omissions have serious consequences. The census helps determine how much federal money is spent in a region and how many lawmakers the region sends to Washington. Undercounts are believed to have cost California one congressional seat and millions of dollars in federal money for such services as health and day care, education and housing assistance over the past decade.

Children were not the only ones undercounted. African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos and Asians of all ages were missed at rates higher than whites, compounding federal representation and funding errors.

“We cannot let this happen to a group of individuals anymore,” said Thomas Randle, a Census Bureau specialist in Van Nuys who is working with black rap artists, basketball and football players and local politicians to encourage more participation by African Americans in the count.

The reasons for the undercount appear almost as numerous as the people the census missed. Some were suspicious of the government inquiries. Others did not receive the surveys at home or were missed by census workers. Many people who mailed back surveys did not know to include their children’s names.

Omissions on the 2000 census could be higher than in 1990, as even fewer people are expected to return the forms due April 1. Federal officials are expecting 61% of Americans to respond to the census this time, compared with two-thirds a decade ago.

Such dire predictions have led to the largest effort to date to boost participation. Federal, state and local governments have banded together with school districts, civic leaders and other census proponents to encourage people at a grass-roots level to take part next year. “Complete count” committees have been created, including one in L.A. to spur people into filling out the five-page form when it arrives in the mail.

Even schoolchildren are being encouraged to talk about the survey with their families. Dunn said he’s been teaching his students at the Hollywood school about the decennial event in social studies. The bureau has sent census teaching kits to school districts nationwide.

Surprisingly, Los Angeles city residents were pretty good about responding to the national survey: 60% mailed back the forms, compared with 53% of New Yorkers, 54% of Chicago residents and 46% of people in Boston.

The Census Bureau asked for an additional $3.8 billion to conduct the 2000 survey, much of it earmarked to minimize the undercount. Millions of dollars more are coming from state and local coffers. California, for example, is spending close to $25 million in state money to increase census awareness.

“I would argue it’s worth the investment,” said Census Director Kenneth Prewitt. “We’ve got a higher percentage of people who don’t speak English, or don’t understand what it [the census] means. We know we have more people in irregular housing. We know we’ve got a very mobile population. . . . We’re certainly running a lot harder” than in 1990.

The timing of the census also may contribute to the undercount, officials said. The form is due two weeks before the April 15 income tax deadline, and many people feel overwhelmed by government paperwork.

Coupled with such obstacles is a widespread distrust of the government, especially among minorities who have long felt neglected by lawmakers. Some new immigrants may have had friends or loved ones disappear after oppressive governments in their homelands conducted head counts.

“A lot of us are afraid of any information the government gathers on us,” said Los Angeles NAACP President Geraldine R. Washington, who is working with the black community on promoting the census. “It’s that ‘Oh, it’s Big Brother’ syndrome.”

Costly Ad Campaign

Perhaps the most ambitious effort to coax participation began Monday with a 17-language, $167-million TV, radio and print advertisement campaign, much of it aimed at undercounted groups. Some ads will feature historical figures such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sioux Chief Sitting Bull woven into the 2000 census theme of “This is your future, don’t leave it blank.”

Such publicity is badly needed, census supporters say. Late last month, a Census Monitoring Board report prepared by the oversight group’s members appointed by President Clinton found that only 42% of Americans knew the survey was coming up. Ten percent said they probably wouldn’t fill the form out.

Even with the ad efforts, Christopher Williamson, associate professor of geography at USC and an authority on the census, predicts that the percentage of people missed in the March survey will be similar to 1990.

Census officials say they will use the same methods as in their last decennial survey, but with a few user-friendly twists.

Letters will be mailed to 120 million households in early March explaining the upcoming census and giving recipients the option of requesting forms in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese or Tagalog. Those who don’t respond to the letter will automatically get one in English, said Anthony Greno, a spokesman for the Census Bureau’s regional center in Van Nuys.

The survey will arrive in mailboxes in mid-March and must be returned before April 1, Greno said. People can also answer the questions on the Internet, he added.

Census officials say they have redesigned the forms to make them easier to understand and with fewer questions--eight--on the short form, making it the shortest in 180 years. About one in six households will receive a long form with 53 questions that ask about their work, health, educational status and home. Long form results will be tabulated to help the federal government determine where to distribute about $185 billion in services.

Details on Completing Form

Officials say it will take about 38 minutes to fill out the long form and 10 minutes to complete the short version. The more people in the household, the longer it will take to fill the forms out.

Census workers will contact respondents from homes listing more than six occupants to collect additional information. (The forms only have room for information about six people).

Also new next year is the option for multiracial respondents to check off several racial categories to better reflect their ancestry. Whether that will skew racial and ethnic counts is a matter of some debate. The Justice Department has clamped down on the bureau for its handling of multiracial numbers during a 1998 dress rehearsal in Sacramento and two other cities. The agency had initially put multiracial respondents into a single category, Prewitt said.

Completed surveys will be processed by private companies that have set up shop in Pomona, Phoenix, Jefferson, Ind., and Baltimore. The responses will be checked off against a master list of names in Washington, D.C., Greno said. Those households on the list that have not sent back a survey can expect a visit from census workers starting the second week of April. They will visit each missed home on three occasions, on different days and at different times, in search of a response.

If the visits are unsuccessful, workers will ask neighbors how many people live at the house and what their names are, Greno said.

By Dec. 31, 2000, the tally used for determining congressional apportionment will be delivered to the president. Redistricting counts will be delivered to the states three months later.

By law, none of the personal information in the surveys can be used by any other government agency, and census workers take a secrecy oath that, if violated, can result in a five-year prison term and $5,000 fine. Confidentiality is kept even if the respondent is an illegal immigrant or might otherwise be in trouble with the government, census officials say.

“We don’t ask if they are undocumented workers. Who would answer that question anyway?” said Reina Ornelas, a census partnership coordinator in Van Nuys. The long form, however, asks where the respondent was born and whether he or she is a U.S. citizen.

Such questions don’t bother Virginia, an illegal immigrant in Diamond Bar who has lived here for 12 years. She didn’t get the previous census, “but to tell the truth, I never requested it either,” she said. “I was also not interested. I have friends who also tell me they’re not interested, that why should they do it if nobody will listen?”

Such cynicism is evident in the survey by the Census Monitoring Board. Nearly six in 10 Americans who responded don’t believe the confidentiality pledge.

At Price’s Barber Shop in Compton, owner D.V. Price said his neighborhood “does not trust bureaucrats.”

“We can’t believe them,” he said. “Look at police brutality.”

Price said he remembers being counted only once in his 40 years in Compton. One of his barbers, Allen J. Nelson Sr., of Inglewood, said it had been at least 20 years since he’d seen the survey. “It’s a money thing,” he said of the census. “We don’t see it because they don’t want us to have it.”

The Bancroft students were optimistic that their parents would receive a census survey. The availability of forms in other languages will lead to more people filling them out, they said.

One exception was classmate Taymyr Bryant. The 12-year-old said her parents may not fill out the form or talk to a census worker knocking on their door. “I don’t know if they would trust them.”

Times staff writer Sylvia Pagan Westphal contributed to this story.

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Looking for Everybody

The Census Bureau has launched a multimedia ad campaign to encourage participation in next year’s count. Magazines, newspapers and billboards nationwide are featuring census ads like these in 17 languages. The $167-million campaign is aimed particularly at the racial and ethnic groups that were heavily undercounted in 1990.

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Enumerating the Undercount

Through a follow-up survey and statistical analysis, the Census Bureau has calculated the “undercount”--those people not included in the official 1990 census. The figures below show the net number of people undercounted in various racial groups; percentages represent the proportion of people undercounted compared to the total population in each category. The subcategory for Latinos is based on ethnicity rather than race and is compiled from the totals for all the racial groups.

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Source: U.S. Census Bureau