Census 2000 is Coming: Returns & Results
In order to help everyone complete their forms and mail them back - from March 3 through June 8, Telephone Questionnaire Assistance will be available through a toll-free number to assist the public in completing their forms. In addition, the instructions for completing the forms will be available in over 40 languages.The Census Bureau will tabulate the data that flows in from the questionnaires (83% of households will receive the short form [.pdf] while 17%, or 1 in 6, will receive the long form [.pdf]) and compute the data. The first data that must be produced is the apportionment data, used to determine the number of representatives to the House of Representatives each state is entitled to, which must be provided to the president on December 31.
Beginning on March 27 and continuing through April 11, anyone will be able to log on to the Census Bureau's web site to view the total response rate from their community or state. This friendly "competition" between local governments and communities is part of the '90 Plus Five program to increase each local government's response rate to be 5% above their 1990 rate.
You can lookup your city or county's 1990 response rate online. The national average was a 65% response, and ranged from an average of 52% in Alaska to 77% Wisconsin.
Because the percentage of people from all housing units who mailed back their census forms declined from 78% in 1970 to 65% in 1990, the Bureau decided to launch an aggressive advertising campaign for Census 2000. This year's campaign, for the first time ever, relies on paid television advertisements (versus free public service announcements that were invariably aired late at night.)
In an additional effort to improve the response rate, those who receive the seven question short form will have code number printed on the form that will allow households to fill out the form online at the Census Bureau's web site. The Bureau expects approximately 7 million of the nation's approximately 115 million households to answer their questionnaires online. The online questionnaire site can handle up to 800,000 users per hour.
On January 25, 1999, the Supreme Court upheld a law passed by Congress that prohibits the Census Bureau from using statistical sampling to determine the population count for congressional apportionment purposes. Thus, sampling will only be utilized for the statistical information that is "sampled" using the long form 17% sample, as has been done since 1940, when the short form was introduced.
Census data will be available over the next few years through the Census Bureau's American FactFinder site. This year's census is the country's largest peacetime mobilization in the county's history.
- Read the Census 2000 FAQ from the Census Bureau for great answers.
- Visit the Census 2000 site for detail about the entire operation.
- Be sure to take a look at the Informational Questionnaires online.
- For more information about censuses and demographics, visit my Census, Population, & Demographics menu of link categories.
Photographs courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau
Page 1, 2
Articles by Date | Articles by Topic
