The Census Bureau’s road tour to promote the 2010 Census will begin next week.
The road tour will kickoff on Jan. 4 in Times Square in New York City.
Thirteen tour vehicles will travel more than 150,000 miles across the country to educate people about the 2010 Census. The tour will stop at more than 800 events, including parades, festivals and the Super Bowl, according to the Census Bureau.
The Census Bureau estimates that the U.S. population on Jan. 1 will be 308,400,408, according to figures released this morning.
That total marks the Bureau’s prediction three months before data is due for the 2010 Census.
The Jan. 1, 2010, projection represents a 0.9-percent increase from New Year’s Day 2009, or an increase of 2,606,181 people.
We’ve written about the extensive (but controversial) outreach to encourage Latinos to participate in the 2010 Census — and now, Iranian Americans are also the target of outreach efforts.
According to the Los Angeles Times, this year’s outreach campaign is the first time Iranian Americans have been encouraged to specifically identify themselves as Iranians on their Census forms.
The protests that followed the reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are expected to help. Since the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, the LAT reports, Iranian Americans have been reluctant to identify themselves. But that’s changed since this summer:
“It has created a sea change in the way Americans view Iranians,” said Reza Aslan, author of “How to Win a Cosmic War,” who moved to the U.S. from Iran in 1979. “No doubt about it, it’s now cool to be Iranian.”
Some hailed it as a sort of coming out for Iranian Americans. The hope is that the effects of that change will be seen in the census count next year.
“It was a sort of boost or a shot in the arm,” [Census Bureau partnership specialist Nadia] Babayi said, because people were encouraged to say that they were Iranian. They weren’t hiding anymore.”
After the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979, many Iranian Americans and expatriates chose to keep a low profile in what some saw as a hostile environment. The 1991 film “Not Without My Daughter” was blamed for helping to cast a negative light on Iranian men. Starring Sally Field, it depicted an American woman and her daughter fleeing Iran and an abusive husband. And in 2002, then-President Bush declared Iran a member of the “Axis of Evil.”
About 300,000 Iranians were counted in the 2000 Census, a figure thought to be highly underreported. The U.S. government classifies Iranians as “white” and some didn’t know they could specify in the “other” category that they were Iranian.
After the large-scale displacement of Gulf Coast residents during the 2005 hurricanes, local governments and community groups are calling for a special count of the region — and Census Bureau director Robert Groves agrees, according to local paper the Shreveport Times.
“The fair thing to do for the country is to do another count of that area later on,” Groves said in an interview with the paper. “They’re rebuilding. They want more people there. People are coming back.”
A special count would make up for the fact that many of the region’s residents still will not have returned by the April 1, 2010 deadline.
The separate count — which would not take place until at least 2012 — is not uncommon. Groves told the Shreveport Times that the Census Bureau has conducted more than 300 special counts since the last Census in 2000, primarily for growing communities looking for more federal funding.
But the major obstacle still facing the region, the article explains, is how to pay for this count:
Groves said the governments could seek federal or private funding.
Marc Morial, chairman of the Census Bureau’s 2010 Census Advisory Committee and president of the National Urban League, said Congress could include the cost of the special census in the 2011 budget.
But congressional lawmakers, including Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the Census Bureau, have raised concerns about the cost.
Despite the cost, Groves was optimistic that the region could find funding for a special count if there’s enough interest in the idea.
“I’m not saying it’s cheap, but somehow other areas have gotten the political will to assemble the money,” he told the Shreveport Times. “It is a matter of will.”
The Census Bureau already plans to take special measures in the region for 2010′s major count, such as going door-to-door to make sure residents receive their questionnaires.
Census forms won’t reach homes until March, but the Census Bureau is already publicizing a three-stage advertising campaign aimed, in part, at encouraging people to fill out their forms and cooperate with Census workers.
So, in which states should the Census Bureau concentrate its efforts?
A look at the response rates from the 2000 and 1990 censuses show that, in general, the same states had low numbers in both years.
Alaska had the lowest response rate in both 2000 (56 percent) and 1999 (52 percent). South Carolina had the next-worse response rate in both years, with 58 percent in 2000 and 56 percent in 1990. (Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, had a response rate of just 53-percent in 2000).
At the other end, Iowa had the best response rate in 2000 with 76 percent, followed by Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin at 75 percent. In 1990, Wisconsin topped the list with a 77-percent response rate. Iowa and Minnesota tied for second-best at 76 percent.
The national response rate was 67 percent in 2000 and 65 in 1990. The Census Bureau is predicting a drop in the response rate, to 64 percent, for the 2010 Census.
More areas with low response rates include Washington, D.C. (60 percent in 2000, 56 percent in 1990), Louisiana (60 percent in 2000, 58 percent in 1990), Hawaii (60 percent in 2000, 62 percent in 1990), Vermont (60 percent in 2000, 64 percent in 1990) and Maine (61 percent in 2000, 58 percent in 1990).
Other states with high response rates were South Dakota (74 percent in both years), Virginia (72 percent in 2000, 70 percent in 1990), North Dakota (72 percent both years) and Ohio (72 percent in 2000, 75 percent in 1990).
This county-by-county map shows a more detailed breakdown of response rates from the 2000 Census.
Some states are already striving to improve their performance from the last count. The Herald in Rock Hill, S.C., reported that the state will have heavier marketing and outreach efforts in the 10 or 12 counties that had the lowest response rates in 2000.
“Some people just don’t understand the importance of the census,” Michael Sponhour, spokesman for the State Budget and Control Board, told the paper.
The Census Bureau released new state population estimates today, the last set of such data to be published before the 2010 Census.
The new estimates give a preview of which states might gain — or lose — U.S. House seats and funding as a result of next year’s count. The data is also the first population estimate that fully account for the economic recession.
The winners from this year’s estimates:
And the losers:
Overall, the estimates show that fewer people are moving (“domestic migration,” in Bureau speak) — especially to states in the south and west — likely as a result of the poor economy.
USA Today has a fascinating interactive map and chart that compare the new estimates to data from 2000, offering an early look at the changes in congressional representation next year’s Census could bring.
According to their data, states poised to gain House seats include Texas, Georgia, Nevada, Washington, Utah, Arizona, Florida and South Carolina. States likely to lose seats are Ohio, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa and Louisiana.
A round-up of coverage of the new estimates:
Census Bureau press release: Texas Gains the Most in Population
USA Today: Census reports slow growth in states
New York Times: Recession Cuts Migration to Sun Belt, New Figures Show
Bloomberg: Texas Gains Most People in 2008-09, U.S. Census Says
Washington Post: Census: Weak economy caused dramatic slowdown in magnet states
There were some technical glitches during a media conference call last week with Census Bureau director Robert M. Groves about the status of the 2010 Census.
Stephen got dropped off the call, and we wrote an editorial criticizing the Bureau’s technical problems with the conference call and failure to make a transcript available.
This afternoon, Stacy Gimbel of the Census Bureau responded in the comments to the editorial with this link to the transcript of the briefing (as a pdf).
Some highlights from the end of the call:
As Stephen wrote last week, Latino leaders are in a controversial collaboration with evangelical churches to encourage participation in the 2010 Census.
As part of that effort, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials is distributing Christmas posters to churches and clergy that depict Joseph and Mary on their way to Bethlehem, with a note that that Jesus was born when Joseph and Mary were traveling to participate in a census.
In the New York Times’ second article on the Census in the past week (the first was on the economy), the paper gives the Census push by Latino leaders — and their work with clergy — a closer look.
The article reports Latino groups are worried about their members being under counted because illegal immigrants may be unlikely to fill out a government form. It also describes why the Census is a milestone of sorts for many Latino leaders:
Latino political leaders see full participation in the census as the culmination of heightened activism that began in the spring of 2006, when hundreds of thousands of Latinos marched in the streets to protest legislation then in Congress that would have toughened laws against illegal immigration. In 2007 they held a nationwide campaign to have Latino immigrants become United States citizens. That was followed last year with a huge voter registration drive.
“We want to tap into that same spirit,” said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, known as Naleo, a bipartisan group that is a main organizer of the census drive. “We have to go back to everybody and say, ‘Just as you marched, just as you naturalized, just as you voted, now you have to be counted.’ ”
One strategy is to encourage Latino immigrants to return the census forms by mail, rather than waiting for a census taker’s knock on the door, which could frighten illegal immigrants wary of immigration agents.
After the Senate blocked an attempt to include a citizenship question on the Census form last month, it became clear that states with significant Latino populations have a lot to gain by full (or as close to full as possible) participation. And that will translate to more funds and congressional representation for the people in those states.
However, some evangelical leaders are arguing against the campaign, objecting to the use of images of Jesus to promote the Census — and even against Latino participation in the Census at all:
But the Rev. Miguel Angel Rivera, a New Jersey pastor who heads a smaller coalition of evangelical clergy, has called for a boycott of the census.
“We need to empower the undocumented immigrants by asking them not to participate,” Mr. Rivera said, “as a way to protest the lack of commitment from this Congress to do what is right and moral, which is comprehensive immigration reform.”
He is touring the country with his boycott call, and he has gained the support of some community leaders, including Nativo López, a Mexican-American activist in Los Angeles.
Any promotional effort that mixes the government and religion is bound to get a little dicey. As the posters are displayed in evangelical churches this week, we’re interested to see what kind of reception they get — and, more importantly, whether they’ll translate into Latino Census participation.
States and municipalities are launching web sites to provide information about and mobilize citizens to participate in the 2010 Census. The sites are run by local governments or state data centers and provide local jobs, contact info, volunteer opportunities and meeting times.
Many states have already launched sites, and other localities — from Maricopa County, Ariz., to Dallas to Mt. Pleasant, Mich. — also have 2010 Census web sites.
We’ve already written about why Census outreach is such a big deal to cities and states. Both the Census Bureau and local governments seem to be making an effort to develop online portals to educate people. Last month, OhMyGov critiqued the Census Bureau’s site, so now, we ask you, readers: What do you think of the web site your state or city has developed?
After the jump, check out a full list of the states we found with Census sites already set up. Leave any others you’ve found — states, counties or cities — in the comments.
Media Post is reporting that the Census Bureau will advertise during the Super Bowl in February.
The Bureau is expected to spend more than $300 million on marketing this year, with a significant portion of that devoted to paid advertising.
The article explains why the Super Bowl ad is important for the Census Bureau:
The Feb. 7 game on CBS comes soon after the Census kicks off a $300 million-plus outreach campaign. And importantly, just a few weeks before the Bureau begins disseminating its questionnaires.
The Super Bowl offers a chance to swiftly reach a massive amount of the U.S. audience. Last year, 151.6 million people — about half of the U.S. population — watched at least a portion of the game. On average, the game was seen in 48 million homes and viewed by 98.7 million people.
The Bureau also ran a spot in the 2000 Super Bowl.
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