Census tries to keep the big count simple - Officials stress form should take about 10 minutes

Matt Campbell
February 1, 2010

KANSAS CITY,Mo.-Filling out the 2010 census shouldn't take much longer than filling up your car. Officials are touting the forms as one of the shortest in decades. Ten questions. Ten minutes. Piece of cake.

No more of the "long form" version that was sent to a random 15 million households in 2000.

Officials hope the simplicity will result in greater participation and accuracy in the once-every-10-years count.

But this census faces a challenge as a result of the recession.

"The vacancy rate through foreclosures and other reasons ... hurts us,"U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Groves said recently. "It means that we're going to mail out alot of forms to units where no one lives."

So officials are urging people forced to live with friends or relatives temporarily because of hardship to include themselves in that household's census count.

"People need to be counted where they're living,"Groves said, "even if they don't, in their own mind, think that they'll live with their brother- in-law the rest of their life."

A publicity campaign will begin this month for the count, which determines how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives. Census workers canvassed addresses all over the country last summer in an attempt to compile as current a list as possible. More than 130 million census forms will be mailed out in March, and the Census Bureau wants them back in April. Return postage is prepaid.

Participation in the census is required by law. Households that do not respond by the end of April will be visited by follow-up census workers.

There are no new questions this year, unlike in 2000, when the form for the first time asked about grandparents as caregivers, a spokesman said.

One new thing is bilingual forms, in English and Spanish.

Forms also are available in Spanish only as well as in Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Russian. Guides are available in more than 50 other languages.

The census seems inevitably to stir some controversy. The New York Daily News this month quoted peoplewho objected to the use of the word "Negro" in the 2010 question about race. Among several checkboxes is one for "Black, African Am., or Negro."

Critics say the term is anachronistic and insulting. But the Census Bureau says the word was included because many people identify themselves that way. The 2000 formalso used the term, and still more than 56,000 people wrote the word out in the blank for "other." Census officials say they will assess the use of the word for future surveys and the 2020 census.

A challenge in every census is getting a full count, especially in minority and urban areas where participation rates are lower. That has prompted manycities to challenge census numbers as too low; population is a key factor in distributing federal money.

To boost participation, the Census Bureau last spring began a program to educate students in kindergarten through high school about the importance of the count. Officials hoped they would carry that message home, where their parents may not speak English.

The census does not ask about legal status, and it does not share its information with immigration or Internal Revenue Service officials.

The Census Bureau was able to do away with the long form this year because it now collects more detailed socioeconomic information about people through another means, called the American Community Survey.

That survey was fully implemented in 2005 and is now mailed to 3 million households each year. Using statistical sampling, the results are then extrapolated for the entire population.

The 10-year census is not allowed to use statistical sampling for the official count, which determines apportionment in the U.S. House and the Electoral College.

Respondents to the 2000 census were given the option of submitting their answers online, but not this time. A census spokesman said the bureau did not want to take risks with the security of the information.

Caption: BOX: 10 questions The 2010 census form has just 10 questions, which officials say should take just 10 minutes to answer. The questions, paraphrased: 1. How many people are in your household? 2. Are there any additional people staying there? 3. Is the home owned? Rented? 4. What is your telephone number? 5. What are the names of all people living there? 6. What is their sex? 7. What is their age and date of birth? 8. Are any household members of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin? 9. What is each household member's race? (multiple choice) 10. Does any member sometimes live or stay somewhere else?