Census 2010: Forcing You to Make Informed Decisions

I was in the news all day yesterday. Not me specifically, but me as a statistic. I am (was) one of the temporary census workers hired. I worked for a month. It was a job I actually enjoyed. The work was interesting; the people I had to talk to were a healthy mix of nice and borderline psychotic.

In America, a form of the census has been around since the 1600s when the (then) British Colonies conducted head counts. The idea of the American Census was actually introduced in 1775 as a “basis of taxation, and to replenish the armies, from time to time.” In typical American fashion, it took a casual 15 years to implement the idea. The idea of counting the population is not a new one. A form of the census has existed in most (if not all) advanced civilizations. If you’ve ever sat through an Old Testament class you might not have been spared your teacher's wrath and been forced to read Numbers. That was an enumeration. With that knowledge alone, you might think that the people whose doors I knock on would not be able to use the, “This is one giant government conspiracy” excuse to shut the door in my face.

Nope.

I can easily divide the people I talk to into simple categories, in no particular order:

1. Young adults, between the ages of 18 and 25, who simply did not turn in the Census form. These people have yet to be disenchanted with life and would give you their social security number if you asked for it.
2. Canadians on vacation. Always super nice. These are the people who ask how you are; invite you in to enjoy air conditioning and probably a cup of water. I love Canadians (blog goal #3=fail).
3. Old people who were too senile to turn in a Census form. “What? I didn’t understand you” is a common phrase.
4. Lonely people who didn’t turn the form in so as to get an enumerator to knock on their door. These people are usually ready with their life story, a glass of tea, and a few photo albums out on the table so that they can show you pictures of cakes that they’ve taken over the years.
5. And finally, there are the right-wingers. The people who hate the government, think I am stealing their information for the sole purpose of selling it on the black market of information, who don’t trust Obama, and whose time I am wasting even though the conversation is happening at 3 pm on a weekday. These are the people I’m concerned with, because they are most likely the people who would vote the same way as me in any national election.

I obviously cannot give any particular examples of group number five. Doing so would essentially ruin my life since the government could (and probably would) throw me into jail for a few years and fine me $250,000. 

"No Touching!"

Hence I opted for the grouping. But these people are more often than not those lovely Tea Party and Birther people. Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity can usually be heard in the background. They tell me they don’t trust Obama, that Obama is spitting on the Constitution, that Obama will use the Census information to come after them, and that the government is constantly invading their privacy.

The irony of their complaints is lost on them. The people so concerned with “individual rights” and “Obama’s trampling of the Constitution” are refusing to participate in the one Constitutional duty that they have (if you think that voting is a duty mandated by the Constitution you would be incorrect, participating in the Census is your only duty).  Article I Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution mandates that a headcount be made every ten years, and, believe it or not, there is a penalty for refusing to answer the Census. 

And the people so worried about their information being stolen seem ignorant of the fact that all of the information they give is confidential (and that I could get more information on the internet about them than I could by asking). 

"Could you give me your debit card pin again?"

Despite what people might think, the IRS cannot get its hands on their census information. Granted that doesn't mean government agencies haven't tried. There is a famous 1980 case of FBI agents showing up to a Census office to seize Census documents. The Census workers refused, and a court upheld the workers’ refusal.  In 1950 President Truman had to move out of the White House while it was being remodeled. The Secret Service tried to obtain Census data to determine a safe place to live. The Census Bureau refused to give the information. 

My only wish was that the power heads (Beck, Rush, Hannity, Levin) would have been a bit more helpful in rounding up their followers to answer the Census. Perhaps by giving them a few facts every now and again?