2010 Census - Short form comes at a price: Less data

Jeff Kunerth
April 16, 2010

"Ten questions, ten minutes" is the marketing mantra of the 2010 Census. But in making it easier for people to fill out and send in their census forms -- which are due today -- the government has made it more difficult for those who rely on the neighborhood-level economic, social and demographic details gathered in the past.

This year there were no long-form census questionnaires asking Americans for information about their income, education, occupations, housing and ancestry.

That street-level, nitty-gritty detail has been used by cities and towns applying for federal grants, city planners targeting areas of growth and poverty, social-service agencies identifying populations that need services, new businesses looking for the right location and advertisers finding potential customers.

"Businesses are concerned they aren't going to be able to target their marketing as well as they used to. Researchers are complaining because they are not going to be able to get detailed information about small communities. A lot of government agencies are a little bit worried, too, because they need to have good data for very small areas so they can plan roads and schools," said Mark Mather, demographer with the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C.

Orlando's chief city planner Paul Lewis used detailed census data a few years ago to create profiles of neighborhoods surrounding public schools as part of Mayor Buddy Dyer's education initiative.

"The long form that we have been privileged to utilize had a lot of good information on income, on poverty rates, on educational attainment," Lewis said. "Unfortunately, a lot of that data is not going to be available this time."

In the past, 17 percent of American households were sent the 50-question, seven-page long-form questionnaire. But public resistance to answering questions many regarded as private and personal, coupled with the demand for more up-to-date information between decennial censuses, led the U.S. Census Bureau to replace the long form with a rolling census called the American Community Survey.

The survey asks the same questions as the long form, but it goes to far fewer households. The smaller sample means that demographic details are valid only for cities and counties with populations of 65,000 or more. To reach down to the neighborhood level with a large enough sample to make the numbers statistically reliable, the survey needs to collect data for five years. Even then, the Census Bureau warns users to watch out for the margin of error before using the data.

"It's a tradeoff. We get data every year, but we have to pay more attention to sampling error," Mather said. "It makes it harder to look at trends from one year to the next. Is it a real trend or is it a sampling error?"

Nevertheless, the American Community Survey data are more current than the decennial census long-form information, which sometimes took years to release and was quickly obsolete -- especially in high-growth areas such as Orlando.

"We are losing something, but it's not as valuable as we thought it was," said Peter Francese, demographic-trends analyst with the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency in New York.

The 2010 Census 10-question short form will provide a wealth of information in a relatively short period. By March 31, 2011, data used for congressional reapportionment and local redistricting will provide planners, politicians and marketers with neighborhood-level information about age, gender, race and Hispanic origin.

Between April 2011 and September 2013, neighborhood-level data about household composition will be available -- how many elderly people live alone, how many people live in multi-generational households, how many same-sex partners there are and how many grandparents are raising their grandchildren.

"What I'm looking for from this census is more accurate information more quickly," Francese said. "That is what I'm hoping we will get."

Caption: BOX: Census forms due today The deadline for returning 2010 Census forms is today. Those who have not sent back their questionnaires can expect a visit from a census-taker starting May 1. The Census Bureau says it costs the government 42 cents in postage for everyone who mails back the form and $57, on average, to send someone to collect the data. U.S. residents are legally required to comply with the census and are subject to a $100 fine for failing to do so -- although that fine has rarely, if ever, been enforced. So far, 67 percent of Floridians have returned their census forms -- matching the national average -- while 60 percent of Orlando residents have returned theirs. For those who have not yet received their forms, telephone assistance is available from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily through July 30 in six languages: *English: 1-866-872-6868. *Spanish: 1-866-928-2010. *Chinese: 1-866-935-2010. *Korean: 1-866-955-2010. *Vietnamese: 1-866-945-2010. *Russian: 1-866-965-2010. The hearing-impaired using a TDD device can dial 1-866-783-2010. To find the nearest location for picking up a form, go to 2010.census.gov. Jeff Kunerth