THE NEW CENSUS
"You want 40 minutes (of my time), and you're not even paying me for it," said Rodd, an assistant computer science professor at Malone College. "I just don't see anything in the Constitution where the government is supposed to know that much about individuals."
Rodd refused to fill out the form.
For that, he could have faced a $5,000 fine, the bureau said. And so could you.
STUDY'S PURPOSE
Your household was three times more likely to get the census survey last year than in the five previous years. From 2000 through 2004, the questionnaires went out to between 740,000 and 900,000 households each year. But starting in January 2005, the surveys went to about 3 million households a year nationwide. Randomly selected households, about 1 in 40 residential addresses a year in every county in every state, will get the forms.
The survey solicits detailed demographics such as the number of people in a household, age, income, marital and veteran status, occupation, housing and even commute time. The questionnaire replaces the similar "long form" survey the bureau mailed every 10 years to 1-in-6 households.
The information is seen as representative of the entire population, the same principle used in polls and TV ratings.
Such details are needed each year, the government says, to give it the current information agencies need to determine where state and federal funding goes. Businesses also use the numbers to decide where to find new customers.
Under the old long-form system, such extensive information was collected only once a decade, and took as long as two years to process. Now the turnaround is less than a year; the bureau expects to release results from the 2005 American Community Survey this summer.
"The problem is that communities change more than once every 10 years," said U.S. Census Bureau spokeswoman Michele Lowe.
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Sawyer, D-Ohio, who chaired the House subcommittee on the census, recalled that lawmakers were deciding how to allocate education money in 1992 based on the 1980 census because more recent data hadn't been processed yet.
The philosophy of the new survey, he said, is "If you took a rolling sample of the nation and began to measure it throughout the course of the decade ... it would reflect the changing nature of the American nation more accurately."
CIVIC DUTY
To get people to respond to the new surveys, the bureau mails letters saying the questionnaire, with at least 57 questions, will arrive soon. It then sends the 24-page surveys in envelopes that say, "Your response is required by law."
"It's the same sort of civic duty as jury duty," said Lowe. A few days later, the bureau sends postcards, reminding people to fill out the surveys. If the forms aren't mailed back within a few weeks in the postage-paid envelope, it sends another survey. If that doesn't work, it may call a household or even send someone to a home to coax the residents to provide the information.
Lowe said about 97 percent of households who get the survey respond.
Though the fine is in the law, the Census Bureau says it isn't likely to pursue it.
"We're not going to be coming after people who don't respond, but we have that authority," said Lowe.
The big penalty, she stressed, is for anyone with the bureau who violates the strict confidentiality of the surveys.
Bureau employees face five years in prison or a fine of up to $250,000 if they reveal personal information from the surveys.
The information cannot even be turned over to law enforcement agencies nor can lawyers subpoena the survey forms for a lawsuit, Lowe said. "It's like Fort Knox. ... Even the president of the United States can't get the information from us," Lowe said. "We absolutely have a pledge to the American people that this is sacred data."
However, the survey forms will be released in 72 years, she said, so they can be studied by historians and genealogists.
PLANNING PURPOSES
Some question whether gathering the information every year, but surveying a smaller number of people, is of much use today.
Jeff Dotson, a principal planner for the Stark County Regional Planning Commission, said some statisticians question whether the smaller pool of households is as accurate as the mass "long-form" surveys.
Merele Kinsey, project manager for the United Way of Greater Stark County, which uses census information to help determine needs in the community, said the range of data the 2004 survey provided was so broad as to make it "useless."
For example, because of the limited number of Stark Countians surveyed in 2004, the bureau can say only that there's a 90 percent chance that 9.8 percent to 41.2 percent of all the families with children under the age of 5 are living in poverty.
"Losing the information we get from the 'long form' is a real loss," Kinsey said. But Dotson said having more-recent information on housing could, for example, help communities determine if homeownership programs are working. Information on commute times and where people live and work is important to plan road improvements for the next 30 years, he noted.
Dan Arnold, an administrator for the Stark County Department of Job and Family Services, said new census data also helps his agency determine if it needs more interpreters to help a growing Hispanic population or if it needs to apply for more grants to help a larger number of people in poverty.
Carole Winchell, director of finance and administration for the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority, said her agency uses information on the number of low-income, elderly or disabled people to decide how many buses to buy. But Rodd sees the argument for the extensive census data as "bribing me to fill this (survey) out, so more of my money and my friends' money will come back to my county."
He pointed to the bigger picture.
"It opens up the whole question ... why so much money goes to Washington and comes back for local programs," he said. "Invading people's privacy isn't the answer."
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