Head Count Experts Hope Folks Come to Their Census

Despite a $170-million nationwide advertising campaign by the U.S. Census Bureau, response rates in Orange County and elsewhere have lagged behind goals, according to just-released figures.

The results were especially disappointing given the bureau’s effort to promote the nationwide head count and allay concerns about privacy. Experts say a broad cultural fear about giving out personal information hurt the census.

In Orange County, 70% of U.S. Census 2000 forms have been filled out and returned so far, only 1% more than a decade ago and short of the 74% response rate census workers had projected. Nationally, 62% of forms have been returned, short of the 70% target.

“People don’t know the laws, but they do know they don’t feel trusting of the system, and you can’t underestimate that,” said Ari Schwartz, a policy analyst with the Center for Democracy and Technology, which studies privacy issues. “That comes out in the census. The government is Americans’ first fear when it comes to privacy.”

Response rates didn’t follow a particular pattern in Orange County. Factors such as income, age and political ideology didn’t seem to matter.

In Villa Park, for example, 78% of census forms were returned, but that figure was five percentage points lower than the city’s 1990 response rate. In Santa Ana, the response rate was 67%--six percentage points higher than in 1990.

The county’s lowest response was in Laguna Beach, where only 56% of the forms were filled out. The highest occurred in Laguna Woods, home of the Leisure World retirement community, where 79% of the forms mailed out were returned.

Census workers will now begin going door to door to reach residents who shunned the forms.

The census, and in particular the long form that some were required to fill out, is vital to getting a statistical picture of the American people, supporters say. The information helps the government plan new roads and hospitals and decide which schools deserve more money.

Orange County’s population is about 2.8 million, and officials want to understand an ever-changing part of one of the biggest metro areas in the nation: where people are from, how much they earn, what they need.

*

Census officials admit the basic process is scary to some people. The census form arrived in the mail in March bearing a note that declared it was against the law not to return it. Forms asked for personal details like the resident’s name and telephone number.

But factor in the distrust within immigrant communities, personal information constantly being gathered via the Internet and concerns about financial and medical privacy and it adds up to a backlash, experts say.

All the traditional fears about government knowing too much still exist, but “we live in an age where more and more middlemen, more third parties, want our information, and [census takers] are paying the price for that,” said a census bureau spokesman in Washington, D.C., who did not want his name used.

Anthony Greno, a census spokesman who covers the Orange County area, said the information the bureau gathers isn’t given to the Immigration and Naturalization Service or anybody else.

“It is only used in aggregate form, but . . . some of the fears are rooted in the computer age we now live in,” he said.

While older people are targeted by telemarketers and have lost control over their personal information, younger people too have watched their e-mail addresses sold to marketing companies and worry even when they register a new computer program that they will be bombarded with unsolicited e-mail.

Experts said the privacy fear transcends politics, age and income. Orange County’s response typifies what census officials are seeing across the country.

“Orange County is a very confusing place. You have older people, conservative people, responding and younger people, who are more liberal, not responding, and vice-versa,” said the census spokesman in Washington.

“I don’t know why. If we knew that, we would have 100% response rate.”