The 2010 Census Does Not Have What Counts

This year's 10-question census is among the shortest ever devised but that does not make the cost to the United States taxpayer any less expensive. 

The truth is that there has been little expense spared in the $338 million campaign to maximize participation with advertising, outreach and marketing that includes census reminders tucked into fortune cookies. That's right, census messages in fortune cookies at taxpayer's expense.

In February, the Seattle Times noted that “Tsue Chong Co., a fortune-cookie factory in Seattle’s Chinatown International District, inserted five different census messages into 2 million cookies shipped to restaurants and groceries across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.   

Certainly, the expense to the taxpayer was not a primary consideration in the U.S. Census Bureau’s “Snapshot of America” Super Bowl forty four ad. That ad met with harsh criticism from television writers, media pundits and the Kellogg School of Management, which gave the Census ad an “F” grade. Television critics charged that the Census ad, which cost $2.5 million (and was directed by independent filmmaker Christopher Guest) was dry, uninformative, and culturally obscure.

In fact, the taxpayer's expense for the 2010 census is now the biggest ever, about 65% above what was spent in 2000. The overall 2010 census budget is $14.7 billion and the cost of the program will easily eclipse that total. 

However, despite the obvious waste of taxpayer money on the 2010 Census, the result is still very important.  The outcome of this once a decade national headcount is used as a basis for the calculation of Congressional Apportionment, which is the distribution of the 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives among the 50 states.

In Congress, political parties use the census to jockey for position to help redraw districts so they can maximize their own party's clout while attempting to minimize the opposition. Congressional Apportionment is also used as the basis to distribute more than $200 billion in federal aid to the states each year.

The demographic changes based on the census can shift billions of dollars in federal funding for schools, roads and job training. The census also determines the number of representatives each state sends to Congress, the composition of the Electoral College and how congressional lines are drawn.

So, with so much at stake for a proper national headcount, it is very troubling that a recent government audit of the Census IT systems found that the technology to insure an accurate Census count was lacking.

A February 2010 Commerce Department Inspector General (IG) audit concluded that the Bureau’s effort in counting Americans is plagued with software and information technology glitches and abusive spending practices. 

As part of the technology “improvements,” the Bureau spent $1 billion to develop a hand-held device to be used by Census workers as they go door-to-door to cull data from households which fail to return their paper questionnaires (expected to be about one-third of the 130 million households receiving the forms next month by mail). 

The handheld computer failed spectacularly, the program was halted, and the aborted process delayed the development of a back-up paper-processing system.  The audit also revealed that a key software component of that paper-processing system is also riddled with deficiencies.

Training of Census workers was another area for concern. The bureau spent $3 million on more than 10,000 census workers who pocketed $300 each to show up for training sessions, but were either fired or quit before they performed any work.  Another 5,000 workers worked for a day or less but were still paid $300.

The 2010 Census has budget, training, IT and management oversight problems. However, the biggest problem for the Bureau is that it does not have the technology that counts.

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