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Official: Census Problem In Century In 2010? Response In 2000 Was Poor
July 18, 2009
Census officials say that Escambia County and Century need to do a better job at getting the word out about the 2010 census in order to improve the 2010 results.
For the 2000 census, only 46 percent of Century residents bothered to mail their census form back to the government. Compared to the national average of 67 percent, something needs to be done, according to Tina Joshua with the Census Bureau.
“We are not getting a true snapshot or the true count,” Joshua said. “We want to raise awareness in the community because if we don’t have a good head count we are not going to be able to get the money into the communities where it is needed.”
The census numbers are important to local governments, she said, because over $300 billion in federal funding is allocated to communities every year based upon their population data from the census. That funding, she said, provides critical services, jobs and economic development.
“We have a distrust of government obviously, a low education level in some cases, some who just don’t care, and some who do not speak or understand the English language,” Joshua said.
The census forms will be mailed to all known households in March 2010, and it is shorter this year than in 2000 — containing just 10 basic questions. The 2000 census was a booklet with detailed questions. If a household does not return the questionnaire by mail, a census worker will visit the home beginning between May and July 2010.
“We will not have people knocking on the door if we can just get people to send it back in,” Joshua said.
Comments
5 Responses to “Official: Census Problem In Century In 2010? Response In 2000 Was Poor”
If Americans believe the country is going the wrong way then Americans shouldn’t participate at all. Because the 2010 Census is a ploy by Obama to raise. I got fooled by Obama when he ran for President and voted for him. No more Americans shouldn’t participate in the census at all. The more Americans that don’t participate in the Census at all is better.
Several years ago, I worked taking contingency reports for drilling new oil wells in this area. These reports were made strictly in case of a poisonous gas release, and evacuation became necessary. We went house to house gathering information on the number of people in the house, if there were special needs like someone in a wheel chair or on oxygen. We explained that we were in no way connected to the government, that we were doing this for an oil company and the information would only be used in case of an emergency, to get people out of the effected area. They were told that H2S is a deadly gas and could kill them in a matter of minutes. Still about half the people we surveyed would not give you any information, in fact if you ask some people who lived in the next house they would tell you they didn’t know, it was strange how when you ran those people down a couple of days later, they had the same last name as the people in the house next door, and looked a lot alike. So with this experience, I’m surprised that they got even 46% of the people in Century to answer any questions.
I like both of these posts!!!!!!!!!
Tina Joshua is looking to place the blame for poor response on the wrong people. She needs to admit that she and her workers did a very poor job, both in publicity and gathering data.
Some people do not participate because of the many “too personal” questions that are asked on the report. If they have formatted a new census only asking a few basic questions, then people may not have a problem with that and co-operate. We’ll see!
I recall when FEMA came to do an damage inspection of our home right after Hurricane Ivan because we submitted a claim for some outside roof damage/leakage, they came inside and recorded all contents of our home (electronics, phones, firearms, personal items and etc…) and we didn’t even claim any property damage on the inside. We felt sorta violated to a certain extent!
It’s because the Government sometimes crosses the line and will get all up in your personal business that creates people to have distrust issues. Census is seen as another way to do that on a 10 year basis. Maybe this 2010 census will be different?