US Census and Government Waste

mykevermin

mykevermin

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Hey, look, the "love to tax and spend" liberal found some government spending he disapproved of?

Well, of course, the former part of the sentence is a misattribution, but let's keep going. The second part of the sentence is true.

I received a letter (addressed to "resident") today from the US Census, letting me know that I'll receive my official Census form in approximately a week.

Am I the only one who got one? How many of these have they sent out? Why can't they just send me the goddamned Census form and not spend however much it cost to build, print, and mail these...um..."trailers"? It's ridiculous.

I'm now a member of the Tea Party.
 
Hahaha, yeah I got mine and thought the same damn thing.

(Well, to be honest what I thought was "what the fuck did they expect me to do with it if they didn't give me this heads up?")
 
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That's like those stupid Social Security projected payouts that they keep sending me and my wife. I'm over 20 years away from even thinking about collecting on it. I'm sure they're just trying to convince me that it will still be around when I am ready to retire, but there must be some sort of online place where those who are curious could go and look. A post card with a website would be much cheaper than this multi-page document I throw in the trash.
 
Instead of sending this one sheet telling us the census is coming, they could have just sent us one sheet asking how many people live in the household...
 
Got mine today also.

It feels like a warning letter. You better not leave your mail in that tiny ass box at any time during the next week because this census is gonna crush that package you got from Grandma. I have a feeling that people will mistake this thing for a phone book.
 
Lewis Black did this joke a long time ago when Bush sent out letters informing people that their tax rebate "would be showing up soon." I think about how many millions of dollars it takes to do that and know that I could be set for life with it.

I have the same reaction when I go into a business and find out they are running Norton or McAfee antivirus.
 
[quote name='Strell']I have the same reaction when I go into a business and find out they are running Norton or McAfee antivirus.[/QUOTE]

They're not only a waste - they're a drain on other resources.
 
[quote name='camoor']They're not only a waste - they're a drain on other resources.[/QUOTE]
Just like all of those worthless layabouts on unemployment!

Sorry, just saw a connection.:lol:;)
 
Got mine in the mail today as wel. It's an utter waste of course. Also consider all the man-hours that went into the planning and composition of the letter.

Also the body of the letter is in english and then a sentence telling you to go to 2010census.gov is at the bottom. In english, spanish, chinese, korean, vietanmese, and russian.
 
Yeah, I got that the other day as well and also thought it was a waste of money and paper (since most will end up in the trash rather than the recycling bin).

Send out the census forms and send out letters to people who don't return them, I don't see this pre-form letter improving the response rate.
 
The Census in it's current form is totally a huge waste of money and resources. I worked for them back in April. We only had about 4 weeks worth of work, including a week of training, and then we were done. They paid us $17 an hour to mark houses on handheld GPS computer, and the whole thing was just a complete clusterfuck with no one really knowing what was going on. They anticipated about 3 months worth of work, but miscalculated, hired too many people, and finished up everything they had for us to do in a month.

My girlfriend has worked as an office clerk for them since November or so, and from what she tells me, that's an even bigger waste. She tells me that all the work we did with the handheld GPS work we did in April was an absolute waste as the GPS units were deemed too inaccurate and too cumbursome for some reason. From what she tells me, most days at work at the Census office consist of a bunch of overpaid people, including herself, who sit around and do absolutely nothing for 40 hours a week. What little work they do have is quickly completed, and then they return to doing nothing. Things might pick up a bit in April after the actual Census begins, but so far the entire thing seems to be a thinly veiled effort by the government to give people temporary do nothing jobs.
 
I got mine bonus letter on Monday. My girlfriend and I did a simultaneous face palm.
Where were the Japanese, French, German and Italian languages!
 
[quote name='JolietJake']Just like all of those worthless layabouts on unemployment!

Sorry, just saw a connection.:lol:;)[/QUOTE]

Hey now. Those folks had to work to be able to collect unemployment. I wish I was as honored to actually find work in this damned economy.:cry:

[quote name='eldergamer']Got mine in the mail today as wel. It's an utter waste of course. Also consider all the man-hours that went into the planning and composition of the letter.

Also the body of the letter is in english and then a sentence telling you to go to 2010census.gov is at the bottom. In english, spanish, chinese, korean, vietanmese, and russian.[/QUOTE]

The costs of composing and mailing out those letters aside, I'd like to know what the fuck happened to immigrants having to assimilate to OUR culture(and learn to butcher English like we do here), not us having to cater to their fuckin' asses.:bomb:
 
Keep in mind some of his assumptions are conservative (wage paid, efficiency in envelope stuffing), so $42m is a low estimate in all probability.

Sounds about right.
 
[quote name='UncleBob']One guy figures - if his math is right - this cost at least $42 Million.

http://axisofright.com/2010/03/09/more-wasteful-census-spending/[/QUOTE]

Yep, definitely a waste. I guess the Super Bowl ad only cost $2.5 million. Then again, taking into consideration production costs... Oh wait, let's not forget all the radio ads we've heard for the census. Ugh, this is ridiculous.

[quote name='mykevermin']Keep in mind some of his assumptions are conservative (wage paid, efficiency in envelope stuffing), so $42m is a low estimate in all probability.

Sounds about right.[/QUOTE]

Bingo, I would challenge someone to show me a government worker paid minimum wage. Any sector, at all.
[quote name='SpazX']Do they actually still pay people to fold and stuff envelopes? I know they have machines for that.[/QUOTE]

True, but someone still has to man those machines and then there's the cost of the machine itself. His figures might be off by a little bit but $42 million doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility for government waste.

This really is the kind of garbage that makes me hate our government. So much waste and no incentive for accountability.
 
And I'd think the real point is whether or not it works. I can't see how sending a letter a week ahead of time gets more people to fill out the census, but if they have data that shows otherwise then I'd be willing to change my mind. If people don't fill out the census form they're going to pay people to go to their houses, which I imagine is much more expensive.
 
I'm excited. I supplement stuff I do with census data all the time.

So I don't get mad at the Glenn Beck nuts who say "just tell them how many people live in your house and that's it!"

I get sad. It fucks up my data; it's impossible to identify people from it, it's crucial for research, and these folks have scared us all into thinking it's a conspiracy. For a moment I wish Bush was in office, or McCain had won - because Beck wouldn't try to pull the same rhetorical strategies if it were a Republican in charge.

But I'm stoked now, like it's christmas morning. To be fair, virtually all of the paper stuff could be eliminated. Mail unique household-specific keys to every address (small card in small envelope) so online census forms can be filled out (and that solves some coding issues, barring people who fill out their census forms incorrectly for whatever reason). Don't have internet? You can trade in your postcard for a paper census at the city building. Blammo, problem solved.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']I'm excited. I supplement stuff I do with census data all the time.

So I don't get mad at the Glenn Beck nuts who say "just tell them how many people live in your house and that's it!"

I get sad. It fucks up my data; it's impossible to identify people from it, it's crucial for research, and these folks have scared us all into thinking it's a conspiracy. For a moment I wish Bush was in office, or McCain had won - because Beck wouldn't try to pull the same rhetorical strategies if it were a Republican in charge.

But I'm stoked now, like it's christmas morning. To be fair, virtually all of the paper stuff could be eliminated. Mail unique household-specific keys to every address (small card in small envelope) so online census forms can be filled out (and that solves some coding issues, barring people who fill out their census forms incorrectly for whatever reason). Don't have internet? You can trade in your postcard for a paper census at the city building. Blammo, problem solved.[/QUOTE]
I might be way off, but when I hear people say things like "Just tell them how many people live in your house and mail it back" I don't take it to literally mean screw up the Census to piss of the Dems, I always take it to mean "It's freaking simple, just fill it out! It's not hard!". I guess I'd have to hear the comment in context though.

Oh yeah, I thought this was interesting. Chart of costs for every Census, including $ amount per person. Not really sure why we've gone from paying less than $1 per person in the 60's to $45 per person today.(re-edit:besides inflation)
http://www.genealogybranches.com/censuscosts.html
 
I can't find the exact quote, but Beck is *not* advocating submitting false information to the census. He does advocate only filling out the question of residency and nothing else, however.

So he's not advocating people falsify the data, but the end result is the same (incomplete data, which becomes a *massive* issue for people who use census data).

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/09/beck-census-slavery/ - not what I was looking for, but something anyway.
 
I heard Beck yesterday talking about the census. He was filling it out on the phone with his wife. Someone else was asking his wife all the questions on the form. She said "none of your business" to every question except one ( I don't know which one, I missed the beginning).

Beck might be a nut, but I do believe he'd approach the census like this no matter who was in office. Unless the current administration has added new stuff to the census, which I don't think they have.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']I get sad. It fucks up my data; it's impossible to identify people from it, it's crucial for research, and these folks have scared us all into thinking it's a conspiracy.[/QUOTE]

Then, perhaps, you should be paying the $45/person to collect the data instead of me.
 
By that reasoning, you benefit from my employment, so you should pay me as well. Please send money orders, no personal checks.
 
It's a social obligation to have a Census, and people shouldn't be complaining about their tax dollars going for it. People can bitch--as even I have--about doing it inefficiently. But it is crucial data for tons of fields like sociology, criminology, urban planning, demography, public health, economics etc., as well as crucial for planning government programs, estimating future budgets and deficits, etc.

And if you got rid of it, and ask us scholars to pay for it ourselves, then you're just going to end up out more money as we pay for conducting surveys with grant money--and mostly federal grant money. And that costs much more than the census. Last project I was involved in spent over $100k collecting a telephone survey in two waves--and that was with a bit under 1,000 respondents.

Even with the waste like these mailings, the census is a bargain in terms of the wealth of data it collects for the cost.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']It's a social obligation to have a Census, and people shouldn't be complaining about their tax dollars going for it. People can bitch--as even I have--about doing it inefficiently. But it is crucial data for tons of fields like sociology, criminology, urban planning, demography, public health, economics etc., as well as crucial for planning government programs, estimating future budgets and deficits, etc.

And if you got rid of it, and ask us scholars to pay for it ourselves, then you're just going to end up out more money as we pay for conducting surveys with grant money--and mostly federal grant money. And that costs much more than the census. Last project I was involved in spent over $100k collecting a telephone survey in two waves--and that was with a bit under 1,000 respondents.

Even with the waste like these mailings, the census is a bargain in terms of the wealth of data it collects for the cost.[/QUOTE]
We aren't complaining about the census, we are complaining about the unnecessary cost of the census. $15 billion for the census? $45 per person in costs? With the recession, bailouts, unemployment, etc...this is way too much of our tax dollars being wasted here. There is no need for a Super Bowl ad, $42 million towards letters letting us know the Census is coming.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']And if you got rid of it, and ask us scholars to pay for it ourselves, then you're just going to end up out more money as we pay for conducting surveys with grant money--and mostly federal grant money. And that costs much more than the census.[/QUOTE]

Awesome plan, man. "If we don't get what we want, we'll rape taxpayers and make it worse."

All I'm saying is that if you want more accurate data, get it yourself and pay for it yourself.
 
[quote name='myl0r']We aren't complaining about the census, we are complaining about the unnecessary cost of the census. $15 billion for the census? $45 per person in costs? With the recession, bailouts, unemployment, etc...this is way too much of our tax dollars being wasted here. There is no need for a Super Bowl ad, $42 million towards letters letting us know the Census is coming.[/QUOTE]

Agreed there is some waste for sure, like I said, it's fine to bitch about that. Bob was going a bit further than that. In all, it's still very cheap as collecting surveys is very costly. Lots of time in getting response rate up, data entering surveys etc. There's waste for sure, but that's not what's making it cost $15 billion, just the nature of getting a high response rate in survey research.

[quote name='UncleBob']Awesome plan, man. "If we don't get what we want, we'll rape taxpayers and make it worse."

All I'm saying is that if you want more accurate data, get it yourself and pay for it yourself.[/QUOTE]

I'm just saying that even with the waste, the Census is pretty cheap for the amount of data it collects.

Should it be ran more efficiently--absolutely. Should it be scrapped? Absolutely not as all of society benefits in various ways from having accurate data about the country's population.

It's not just us social scientists, but again it's crucial to know what the population looks like and where it's trending in order for the government (at the local, state and federal levels )to really function and be able to adapt to changes. It's crucial for targeting programs, allocating federal funding, being proactive in urban planning, highway/road system upgrades and expansions and about any other kind of change you can think of.

I don't really have a dog in the fight, I've yet to use census data in any of my research since I tend to use smaller geographic units of analysis than the census codes. But I see the importance of having a census funded by tax dollars as understanding demographics is crucial to all of society.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']t's not just us social scientists, but again it's crucial to know what the population looks like and where it's trending in order for the government (at the local, state and federal levels )to really function and be able to adapt to changes. It's crucial for targeting programs, allocating federal funding, being proactive in urban planning, highway/road system upgrades and expansions and about any other kind of change you can think of.[/QUOTE]

It's also handy when you're about to go to war with another country and you want to round up all the immigrants from that country... just in case.

But we would never do anything like that with the census data, would we, Uncle Sam?
 
dmaul's right.

baby and the bathwater and all that.

Super Bowl commercial? Too much for too little.

Ad campaign? Largely unnecessary.

Prompter letters in the mail? Largely unnecessary.

The census itself? That's absurd.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']The census itself? That's absurd.[/QUOTE]

Agreed! It is absurd!

No, seriously, I do understand that there are some reasons why the census is necessary. How many people live in my household? Check. How many bathrooms I've got? Nonya. There's a fine line, and the census passed it some time ago.
 
[quote name='SpazX']Will knowing the number of bathrooms in your house aid the government in rounding up and killing you?[/QUOTE]

I'm sad this post wasn't directed towards me.

...

An actual census is nice for the reasons noted.

All of the quackery associated is done without your knowledge during the other nine years by a multitude of government agencies.
 
Number of bathrooms is necessary for urban planning. Upgrading the sewage system, dealing with waste water drain off etc.

Also useful for business purposes--look at trends in number of bathrooms per house and plan accordingly when designing houses for new developments, deciding whether to expand a company that makes porcelain toilets and sinks etc. etc.

As silly as some items may seems, they're of use for some purposes. There's really no such thing as useless data/knowledge.
 
[quote name='SpazX']Will knowing the number of bathrooms in your house aid the government in rounding up and killing you?[/QUOTE]

How does it help the government?
 
[quote name='UncleBob']How many bathrooms I've got? Nonya.[/QUOTE]

Urban planners would disagree. But don't let the need for a structured society, organized with adequate resources to meet need, get in the way of being reactionarily anti-government for the sake of simply having a reaction.

EDIT: drat, foiled by dmaul. Chart Porn is down right now, but there is a great image showing water usage in Canada during last Sunday's Olympic Hockey gold medal game. More or less proves Bob's point dismally wrong, but we won't let that get in our way, will we?
 
So, what you're saying is if I have three bathrooms, but only one person living here, I'm going to put more of a drain on the sewer system than a household with only one bathroom but seven people living there?

As for businesses - what, we're suddenly for letting private business suck at the taxpayer's teat?
 
[quote name='UncleBob']How does it help the government?[/QUOTE]

Well other people have addressed that in particular, but do you think they ask questions just for the hell of it?
 
The last time this came up (has been a year or more) someone found a study that showed that number of bathrooms did have an impact on water usage.

It wouldn't matter if it's just one person, but when you have multiple people it makes a difference. IIRC the logic was that people tended to take longer showers etc. if there were multiple bathrooms--thus less pressure to finish quickly so it's free for another house member to use the toilet/shower etc. since they can just use another bathroom. So a 4 person household with 3 bathroom would on average use more water than a 4 person household with 1.5 bathrooms etc.

In any case, I'd think the majority of 1 person households tend to only have 1 or 1.5 baths--but that's a question only the census can answer! :D
 
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