Census finds drop in state respondents

Thomas Barlas
May 8, 2010

While the decrease is small, officials and activists say the potential fallout is large.

A smaller percentage of the state's residents mailed back their U.S. Census Bureau forms this year than in 2000, despite advertising campaigns, local rallies and the use of the Internet and social networking technologies to spur response.

Census officials attribute some of the slight decline in the response rate to national security and technology issues that were not around for the last count a decade ago.

Census officials said residents this time around feared personal information would somehow lead to computer-based identity theft and be unnecessarily shared with various government agencies through national security laws stemming from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Response also was stymied by a growing distrust of government and recent, caustic debates on immigration laws, with the latter particularly reducing response from the Hispanic population, they said.

"We knew that we would be facing a lot of challenges in 2010," Census Bureau spokeswoman Monica Davis said.

Bert Lopez, of the Atlantic County Hispanic Alliance, said Census Bureau statements that recent immigration debates caused fewer Hispanics to return the forms are "on the money."

"It's scared people," Lopez said. "It's been a constant one thing after another that has paralyzed a lot of activists. People aren't being involved. Even before the Arizona news broke, there was a large amount of people who were simply scared to come forward because of repercussions. It creates more tension."

Arizona's recently enacted Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act allows police to ask people for proof that they are legally in the United States. Authorities must first have reasonable suspicion to make the stop.

In southern New Jersey, the percentage of residents participating in the census by mail dropped by 1 percentage point to 67 percent in Atlantic County, to 72 percent in Cumberland County and to 77 percent in Ocean County when compared with 2000 statistics. The percentage dropped by 3 points to 62 percent in Cape May County.

Statewide, 72 percent of New Jersey residents mailed their census form. That's a drop of 1 percentage point from 2000.

The decrease occurred despite a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign -- including a $2.5 million buy during the Super Bowl.

The bureau churned out television commercials featuring diverse celebrities such as political operative Karl Rove, singer Donny Osmond, a Miss America and cartoon character Dora the Explorer. Census commercials were produced in languages that included Vietnamese, Russian, Polish, Mandarin, Khmer and Arabic.

The bureau even turned to social networks Twitter, Facebook and Youtube -- technologies that did not exist for the 2000 count.

Pushing the census was not limited to the federal government: Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford led a march through the resort earlier this month to bolster response. Pleasantville officials urged various ethnic groups to mail back the forms. Vineland Mayor Robert Romano told constituents that the better the response, the better off his Cumberland County city would stand to receive federal funds.

The Langford administration seemed surprised by the overall decrease in returns, with spokesman Kevin Hall saying officials cannot explain the drop.

"We just aren't understanding why the numbers are down," he said. "We could speculate all day and night and still not come up with a reason. We know that we did all that we could."

April 15 was the deadline to mail forms.

The Census Bureau is now sending out an army of temporary workers -- called enumerators -- to visit the homes of people who did not return the forms. The bureau hired about 1,000 workers for Atlantic County, 600 for Cape May County, 400 for Cumberland County and 1,500 for Ocean County.

Davis said some of the enumerators began working Sunday, while the bulk began their counting duties Monday.

Davis said the enumerators are trained to deal with some of the problems unique to gathering this year's count. They are undergoing some role-playing to help them cope with situations in which they may fear for their personal safety, or find themselves in a house where they are unwelcome, she said.

Census officials would not allow The Press of Atlantic City to talk with the enumerators.

They also would not disclose where the enumerators will work on any given day because the census is required to maintain strict confidentiality of responses.