Talk:United States census/Archive 1

IBM and the census

 * IBM's first electronic computer was created primarily to deal with the needs of the census in addition to military and academic uses.

Does this really need to be in the section with the 1890 census? -- anonymous posting at 19:54, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
 * The comment certainly belongs in this article, as it's important to know that the U.S. census helped early drive the development of computers. I think the real problem is that the sectioning into "nth Census of the United States" just doesn't work.  I suspect that when that gets fixed, the text you mention will get moved to a more appropriate section. &mdash; DLJessup 14:48, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Constitutionally mandated?
I did a quick search through the Wikisource of the Constitution for "census" and the list of powers of Congress, but found 2 mentions and none stated there MUST be a census, unless there was an inferred meaning. Anyone else know? Thanx 68.39.174.91 19:57, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Article 1, Section 2: "The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct." The "Enumeration" is what we refer to as the Census. &mdash; DLJessup 20:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Move

 * Can't do it without an admin, though. &mdash;Mark Adler (markles)  13:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Speedied. &mdash; Nightstallion (?) 13:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

What data is collected?
A great thing to add to this article would be what questions are asked/what data is collected. Right now I'm trying to find if religious information is taken in the census, but having an exact list would be even more benificial. Wizard191 22:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC) Religion questions are not asked. The "short form" asks for your name, sex, age and birthdate, tenure (own or rent), race, Hispanic origin. To be able to apportion representatives, the Census Bureau needs to report how many people live where. The reason for name, age, etc. is to ensure that each person is counted once. Get a hold of the 2000 "long form" for the questions to see the questions that are typically asked. --SilverWoodchuck47 01:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Huge gaps in this article
This article does not contain information on:

--The recent decision to distribute only short questionnaires during census years and issue long questionnaires only as part of the American Community Survey during intervening years.

--The Second War Powers Act of 1942, which allowed the Census Bureau to give data on individuals to any government agency when needed for "the conduct of the war." This data had been gathered under a promise of confidentiality. The director of the Census Bureau lobbied for the change, and the government took advantage of it to gather the names and addresses of Japanese and Japanese-Americans living in the U.S. The Census Bureau consistently denied that it had ever released data on individuals during the war until such release was recently documented.

--The Census Bureau's active cooperation in fast-tracking data for government agencies to identify neighborhoods containing Japanese-Americans so they could be rounded up for internment during World War II. After 9/11, the Census Bureau did the same for the Department of Homeland Security to identify neighborhoods where Arab-Americans live.

--The proportion of census questionnaires that are not returned and the Census Bureau's attempts to counteract that trend.

--A sample or description of questions in the most recent short and long questionnaires.

Steve Emmons 08:43, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Eleventh census
"This census is also notable for the fact it is the only one of three for which the original data is no longer available. " Only one of three? Rich Farmbrough, 20:09 1 November 2007 (GMT).

Gaps!
What happened to the 1950, 60, 70, 80, and 90 US censuses? They're gone! Little Mountain 5 (talk) 16:50, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * They're linked via the template at the bottom of the screen. Looks like no one found anything interesting to say about them (other than perhaps writing a me-too comment that just gives the date and total). Tedickey (talk) 17:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Estimates between Official Census
I think it would be beneficial for this article and many other articles if there could be some information added regarding intermediate censuses (e.g., "2004 Census"). Frequently, (as of 3/26/06), articles cite the 2005 population. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Houston

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_metropolitan_area

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix%2C_Arizona

The official census website frequently lists a 2004 census as semi-official. I haven't found any official 2005 estimates though.

Does anyone know the standards for these intermediate censuses? Methods used? Links to them? I think this would be helpful to many wikipedia articles. User:24.175.64.6

Censuses between the decennial censuses are "test censuses." They are used to evaluate new questions, evaluate rewording of questions, and to try and incorporate new technologies and procedures. The Census Bureau is always to trying to improve data collection quality. There was a 2004 test census and a 2005 test census. There is currently a 2006 test census (data for which won't be available until early next year, I believe) and there will be a 2008 Dress Rehearsal Census. What do you mean by "standards" and "methods?"--SilverWoodchuck47 01:41, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

When does the census become public domain? "Title 13 assures complete confidentiality for all records in the Bureau’s custody. Once the records are passed to the custody of the National Archives, the Archives can then release them for public use when the records are 72 years old." (http://www.gao.gov/archive/1998/gg98103.pdf) SilverWoodchuck47 (talk) 02:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)SilverWoodchuck47

Penalty for No Response
Is there a penalty for not responding to the census? I have not been able to find this information anywhere. I am sure I'm not the only US citizen that feels uncomfortable giving more personal information to the government (Especially since census data has been abused in the past, and has huge potential to be abused in the future given our current government). This is something I'm sure many people have come to this article for the answer. --Mijunkin (talk) 02:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

There are two answers to this question.
 * Yes, refusing to fully fill out a questionnaire or knowingly supplying false information is a federal crime.
 * Refusing to fill out any or some of the questions happens so often nowadays that the feds don't prosecute.

THERE SHOULD BE A CITATION FOR THE RULE/LAW PERMITTING RELEASE OF IDENTIFYING CENSUS INFORMATION ONLY AFTER 72 YEARS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.0.38.72 (talk) 20:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Every 10 or 11 years?
I'm confused, and I'm wondering if someone can help me. Specifically that the US Census takes place every 10 years. I understand that, but if 2000-2009 is a decade rather than 2000-2010, shouldn't the census take place on the last day of 2009?

If the numbers are done like this:

2000 - 1st year 2001 - 2nd year 2002 - 3rd year 2003 - 4th year 2004 - 5th year 2005 - 6th year 2006 - 7th year 2007 - 8th year 2008 - 9th year 2009 - 10th year 2010 - 11th year

Or does it all start over again on 2010? I know this is a stupid question but I'm confused. :( 68.51.41.46 (talk) 04:51, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The census is taken in years that end in a zero: 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020, etc. Each one is 10 years after the previous one.  So (assuming the census was all done on a single day each time), if you were born on census day of one census, the next one would be on your 10th birthday, the one after that on your 20th birthday, and so on.  I hope that helps you visualize it better. 76.233.78.160 (talk) 05:48, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that does. I appreciate the help! 68.51.41.46 (talk) 16:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Homeless Counts are Not Reported
The statement, "In recent censuses, estimates of uncounted housed, homeless and migratory persons have been added to the directly reported figures." needs to be revised. From Census Special Reports,Series CENSR/01-2,Emergency and Transitional Shelter Population: 2000: "It is important to stress that these figures do not constitute and should not be construed as a count of people without conventional housing. Nor do they provide a complete tabulation of service users at the canvassed sites.", and In an attempt to describe clearly that Census 2000 would not be producing a count of the population experiencing homelessness, the Census Bureau adopted the terminology, people without conventional housing."  Lastly, from ask.census.gov: "The U.S. Census Bureau does not produce counts of the population experiencing homelessness. However, special procedures were developed to ensure the Census 2000 included people without conventional housing, who may be missed in the traditional enumeration of housing units and group quarters."

So, the sentence should read: The Census Bureau uses special procedures to censuse that people without conventional housing are counted; however, data from these operations are not considered accurate. (Bikepunk (talk) 18:07, 6 June 2009 (UTC))

Immigrants are Not "Undocumented" (They Have Plenty of Documents), but Illegal
It is sheer Political Correctness to use the description "undocumented immigrants." Illegal immigrants have plenty of documents, but these documents are fake or stolen. Illegal immigrants are "illegal" -- not undocumented. If, on the other hand, the purpose of Wikipedia is to conceal reality, or to pretty up reality, or to furnish information only when it is shielded under the cloak of Political Correctness, then the label "undocumented" would then be appropriate.


 * Someone must be sabotaging this article. This is a linguistic principle and not a political one. "Illegal immigrant" is the literally accurate term. It is does not mean that they are illegal people who are immigrants. It means that they are people who immigrated illegally. That is not disputable.24.61.102.223 (talk) 03:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Ancestry Survey
Is there a way to see what % of a counties' ancestors were from a given country in 1880? This is not the same as asking people if they were born in a foreign country. Modern US census ask people what their ancestry is. But can you find it in the 1880 census? What is the earliest year the census asked this? Rakovsky (talk) 20:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Check out the historical Census Bureau reports. -- Sift  &amp;  Winnow  21:57, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * In the 2000 census I had to answer that question, but only because I was one of those randomly picked people who got the long form. I don't know if they're still doing that. Ancestry is a matter of self-identity and not objective fact. My ancestors came from 3 different European countries, but the largest portion of my ancestry (50%) is from a single country, and my family name is from its language, so that's what I wrote down.24.61.102.223 (talk) 03:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Pets
Recent news suggests that a cat was called for jury duty due to its owner recording it as part of her family (duly noted as as pet, though) -- see http://www.mysanantonio.com/sacultura/81328762.html; http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/features/mutts/blog/2010/01/civic_cat_called_for_jury_duty.html; http://content.usatoday.com/communities/pawprintpost/post/2010/01/cat-gets-called-to-jury-duty/1. If any of this is true, it opens up very interesting questions--(1) can animals be recorded in census documentation, (2) how widespread is the practice. --达伟 (talk) 05:21, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I saw that too. I think this person is off their rocker and the reporter had no idea what they were talking about. 018 (talk) 23:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

IRS and census
The IRS took the census to court to try to get census data and failed. Someone might want to add that. April 2010. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gadickson2002 (talk • contribs) 18:25, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Who is actually counted
The article does not tell the reader which people are counted. While illegal aliens are discussed, U.S. citizens not physically in the U.S. are NOT counted unless they meet certain criteria (one of which is not "officially a citizen of a state").211.225.30.91 (talk) 11:38, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

US Marshals not executive?
"The first nine censuses (1790–1870) were not managed by the Executive branch, but by the Judicial branch. The United States federal court districts assigned U.S. marshals, who hired assistant marshals to conduct the actual enumeration."

This is not entirely correct. US Marshals are executive branch employees - the first 15 being appointed by George Washington. They simply provide many services to the judicial branch. Also the title, "United States Marshal" should be capitalized. Please clarify.

Rabby Tat (talk) 01:01, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Grammar
I have no idea why user:Tedickey decided to revert my correction of a couple of trivial grammatical errors in the main article. While I realise that some editors have a bit of a turf-war mentality about their pages, the sentences that I have fixed don't make any sense without my corrections. This should be obvious to anyone who actually read the section and knows how to use an apostrophe. Retarded crap like this is why people stay away from Wikipedia. 122.60.93.162 (talk) 05:53, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * You should have used the "View history" tab to see why Tedickey reverted your change. The edit summary there shows "revert - joining two complete sentences with a comma is not an improvement".  Your change did indeed run two independent sentences together, making one long unwieldy conglomeration of words, so that change needed to be reversed.  The apostrophe change was actually good, but was overlooked in the reversion.  I've put the latter in without the incorrect first change. -R. S. Shaw (talk) 04:55, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Constitutional right of a census?
Should there not be a mention of the controversy over the modern census? The definition of census, as the constitution deams it, is to take a count of the people. Yet, a modern census requires such information as "What time you leave for work", "How long it takes you to get there", "How many toilets you have...", etc... obviously these are ridiculous questions, yet you're required to answer them or face a fine. Those people that simply fill in what they are constitutionally required (Number of people, etc...) typically get a meeting from a govt. worker. I'd love to see an unbiased opinion on this sort of govt. behavior. Gpia7r (talk) 13:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Another seciton of the US constitution, specifically Article 1, grants congress the ability to pass laws and enforce those laws. If you are interested in what types of laws congress can pass, you can read more at the US constitution page. Alternately, if you want more details on the census page about laws associated with the census, you might want to ask for help with this article at Portal_talk:Law.
 * You may also be interested to find out that, "The 2010 Census will be a short-form only census and will count all residents living in the United States as well as ask for name, sex, age, date of birth, race, ethnicity, relationship and housing tenure – taking just minutes to complete." . PDBailey (talk) 00:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

it turns out you were wrong on one point the 2010 census did not ask about ethnicity in the 2010 census only race and hispanics as a group which can be part of any race. but as for individual ethnicity is a mystery as we will never know how many people from certain exact ethnic backgrounds there were. the 2000 census reported about 500 diffrent ethnicities im not sure what ethnity i was counted as becasue my mother who filled it out for my household does not remember what she put. it has angered alot of people in the US that write in ethnicity and self identification was removed. its angered middle easterners becasue now there all just white people rather then people from specific countries. i myself am kinda upset i hope that self identification for ethnicity can be resolved in the 2020 census. 69.221.168.185 (talk) 09:28, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Some Other Race Category
The "Some Other Race" category should merge with "Two or more races" category in a MULTIRACIAL category to be more accurate and have a better view about the level of miscegenation in the U.S.--81.37.39.152 (talk) 02:26, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

i complely disagree with you there are other races. depending on which races are listed theres always other types of races (breeds) of humans. for instance theres a central asian race thats exsited for thousands of years with many diffrent tribal affliations one of these groups colonized a small portion of europe they were the magyars. now a days there simply called hungarians. these hungarians would fall into other race becasue there central Asian. so they would not be able to say white if they were full blooded hungarian becasue whites have to be either european or middle eastern. middle eastern includes the south west portion of asia and the north africa portion. buy hungarians are just one example of other race there are others such as people from india being there own race becasue they have a unique racial ad-mixture of there own. i hope this answer your questions on other race. 69.221.168.185 (talk) 09:40, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

i also want to add that the idea that theres a united human race concept promotes human evolution and makes the biblical concept of creationism impossible. because under the human race view all the diffrent racial groups are long distant cousins of one another going back tens of millenia ago. where as in creationist human thought god would have created all the other races of people separatly and there not long distant evolutionary cousins. i of cource am a reformist catholic christian so i beilve in the idea of human evolution and that we are all the same race. but its ok to have racial groups in the census because it gives a detaled picture ,even though i am completly aware that racial groups is a human construct and open to interpretation by every individuals self identification. 69.221.168.185 (talk) 10:08, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

image
There should be an image of the population of the US over time! 78.35.197.253 (talk) 15:01, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

dead link
This link is dead: https://ask.census.gov/cgi-bin/askcensus.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=7389 --Palapa (talk) 09:52, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Article layout
Would anyone object if I switched the order of the Procedure and History sections? The second paragraph of the present article would make a fine first paragraph of a history section. Thanks. Fotoguzzi (talk) 04:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

72-Year Rule
There needs to be clarification regarding the 72-Year Rule: In the section entitled 'Respondent Confidentiality,' this rule is described as being law; however, in the section below that, 'Data Analysis,' the rule is described as not being law. Perhaps, as suggested here, the history and current status of this rule can be better delineated (with references!). Jdevola (talk) 18:39, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

The sequestration period for census records used to be 70 years. When and where did it get changed to 72 years and who cares if it's one or the other?--Virgil H. Soule (talk) 16:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Title 42 section 2108(b) of the United States Code may be a good place to start. – allen四names 02:57, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

This article states "The 72-year rule is not law, but a rule posed by Roy V. Peel, Census Bureau Director, in a letter to Wayne C. Grover, Archivist, on August 26, 1952". However, the page provided as a citation for that statement actually says "This "72-Year Rule" (92 Stat. 915; Public Law 95-416; October 5, 1978) restricts access to decennial census records to all but the individual named on the record or their legal heir.". The cited law seems to be codifying Peel's letter as law. --144.53.226.17 (talk) 02:21, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

census.gov
Does anyone know why census.gov cannot be accessed from Hong Kong? The problem has been around for several years, even though sites such as this http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/census.gov.html say it is operating normally. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:12, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Hot deck imputation
I added an anchor to the link to imputation to take the reader directly to subsection Single imputation to more easily allow them to figure out what "hot deck imputation" means. Pariah24 (talk) 09:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Merge from Census Day
I have boldly merged sone text from Census Day into the procedure section. AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 05:33, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

question
Has anyone ever seen previous years census figures changed on the United States Census site? I just saw a 2013 figure changed when the 2014 came out. That looks fishy to me, as anyone have never seen it before? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Linda Rider (talk • contribs) 04:52, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

question
Has anyone ever seen previous years census figures changed on the United States Census site? I just saw a 2013 figure changed when the 2014 came out. That looks fishy to me, as anyone have never seen it before? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Linda Rider (talk • contribs) 04:56, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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How bad exactly is this undercounting?
I've heard of Miami being known as one of the most undercounted places, but it cannot possibly be by as much as 50%, could it? Well, according to this many of the big neighborhoods are. And I believe this refers to the official 2010 US census, not one of the estimate years. I thought, as with estimates, they take the response data as well as aggregating a bunch of other data to arrive at a final estimate, ahem official count. If the Miami Today article is telling the whole story, this changes everything. B137 (talk) 10:29, 16 November 2015 (UTC)


 * See the official results from the Census Bureau's post-enumeration survey. The 2010 Census net overcount was 0.01 (not statistically different from zero). 2000 Census had an estimated net overcount of 0.49 percent and the 1990 Census had a net undercount of 1.61 percent.Shel5136 (talk) 21:01, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Citation wrt FBI attempted access no longer functional
The current citation is to a search at findarticles for the relevant Colorado Springs Gazette article, but no longer yields any result. I searched for a free archive copy or even a link on the Gazette itself but was not successful. I did find the article hosted at a licensed news aggregator (https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-5943532.html) but that requires a subscription for access. If anyone can find an available archive somewhere else that link could be fixed. I do not think that part of the article or the cite should be removed entirely though as it's a pertinent legal example of the modern sanctity of the census. However, as the wiki section reports that "Courts upheld that no agency, including the FBI, has access to Census data" it may be possible to find that actual court records to that effect which could be a viable alternative citation. xoa (talk) 16:36, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Racial Categories Section
The Racial Categories section needs to be either removed or entirely rewritten. Right now, it's sloppy and heavily editorialized. It feels more like a draft of somebody's essay about racism in the U.S. Census than part of a Wikipedia article, and adds nothing to the article.

Throughout the section, the names for decades are inconsistent, with "1790's" "1920s" and "70s" being used. Wikipedia seems to use "1920s" instead, so they should all be changed to that format. The first and second sentences are awkward, but if we remove "specifically toward black citizens" they're at least factually correct. Everything afterwards is pointless. It's analyzing small differences in wording, and makes up some information. The term "negro" is hundreds of years old and was the proper term until the 1960s. The scare quotes around advanced are ridiculous, the ellipses should be changed to a period, and it's overall just a mess. I'm going to fix some of the smaller issues right now, but I think the entire section should be removed.

2605:E000:1114:80DB:6C41:A4E8:B58D:75D2 (talk) 00:07, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

I looked at the edit history and the entire section was added here, so unless anybody objects I'm going to remove it soon. 2605:E000:1114:80DB:6C41:A4E8:B58D:75D2 (talk) 00:27, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Citizenship Question
The article states that the citizenship question was part of the short form until 2000, and only removed for the 2010 census. However the referenced source does not agree with this. The 2000 Census page is somewhat ambiguous, but does not include the citizenship question (question 13) in the seven questions asked of all respondents on the short form (questions 1-6 and 33). The 1990 Census page explicitly notes that the citizenship question was only on the long form, as does the 1980 Census page. There isn't any evidence of a citizenship question on the 1970 Census page. The 1960 Census asked about place of birth, from which birthright citizenship can be inferred, but does not address the citizenship status of foreign born individuals. Therefore, the 1950 Census was the most recent census where the citizenship status was asked for all respondents. Cg-realms (talk) 23:21, 6 September 2018 (UTC)