My Two Census

There are many mysteries surrounding Census Coverage Management. (Some are discussed here in this Powerpoint presentation.) The Government Accountability Office (GAO) published some critiques/suggestions for CCM back in April, but it is unknown if these recommendations have been implemented. Today, out of the blue, I received some updates to my FOIA request from February that sought to examine correspondences between various officials. (Presumably, this sudden appearance of information had something to do with the fallout of Mr. Jost’s mention of this request the other day in the comments section of this blog.)  If you start at page 32, you will get to read quite a bit of information about Census Coverage Management, a most important 2010 Census operation. Here’s the document:

FOIA response on 8-5-10

For most of you, this is old news by now, but I hesitated to report it because it would probably just make you more angry. It recently came out that most of America’s new jobs are temporary Census Bureau positions that will soon end, which is dismal news for the economy. As MyTwoCensus.com observed, some people on the right are outraged by what they report as false job statistics since Census Bureau employees have been hired and let go (for various reasons) and then re-hired to work for other 2010 Census operations down the road.

FoxNews published reports from Commerce Department and Bureau of Labor Statistics spokespersons:

Commerce Department spokesman Nick Kimball:

“The Census Bureau — like all other employers — reports the number of individuals on its payroll for the specific week the Labor Department uses as a point of reference for measuring the nation’s level of This is not a tally of positions filled during the past month — instead, it is the number of actual individual human beings who received paychecks that week. That number can then be compared to the reports from previous months to understand the changing jobs environment over time.”

Bureau of Labor Statistics spokeswoman Stacey Standish:

“Each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Current Employment Statistics (CES) program publishes the employment levels for total nonfarm and component industries. Establishments, including the Census Bureau, are asked to report the total number of workers on their payroll. That is, the establishment is asked to report the total number of employees who worked or received pay for the pay period that includes the 12th of the month. The CES program does not ask establishments to report the number of new hires or created, or the number of persons who were laid off.”

Shelly Lowe of the Census Bureau’s public information office commented on a MyTwoCensus post:

First, the Census Bureau does not hire, then fire, and then rehire anyone. Any employee who is fired is fired for cause. We train and hire temporary workers for various operations, most significantly Non-Response Follow-Up (NRFU) to complete work assignments. When the work is complete, the temporary worker goes into an inactive status. They may be re-activated if there is more work to do, or for another subsequent operation. At no time do we count a re-activation from non-working status as a ?rehire.?

The article goes on to state: “Labor doesn’t check the Census hiring figure or whether the jobs are actually new or recycled. It considers a new job to have been created if someone is hired to work at least one hour a month.

This is simply inaccurate. The Census Bureau reports to the Department of Labor and on our public website the number of people paid for work during a given week. We do not report the number of jobs. The Census Bureau reports the total number of unduplicated temporary 2010 workers that earned any pay during a specific weekly pay period. Temporary workers earning any pay during the week are counted only once. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) measures changes in employment levels — not the actual level itself — and looks only at the week which includes the 12th day of the month. It is simply not possible for Census to engage in the manipulation of data to artificially inflate the employment report of the BLS in the manner alleged by this news column.

So now we see that the number of people on the payroll each week is the number of people who are reported to the government. However, as we know from previous posts and reports by the Commerce Department Inspector General and Government Accountability Office, there are tons and tons of Census Bureau employees who are “trained” each week but never actually work. Furthermore, there are thousands of Census Bureau employees who are only working part-time. Many workers have twenty hours to work per week, tops. These  figures are not accounted for in the Census Bureau’s tally, which are further compounded by the Census Bureau’s frequent IT malfunctions making it such that Census Bureau employees who are on the clock are merely sitting around and waiting for assignments to come through.

Ranking Republican on the House of Reps. Committee for the 2010 Census Patrick McHenry has rightfully been criticizing members of his own party in recent weeks for their attempts to thwart progress on the decennial headcount. The St. Petersburg Times’ PoliFact blog has looked into McHenry’s claims and fact-checked them:

By Robert Farley

By now, most people have gotten the 2010 census in the mail. And for the first time, the U.S. Census has provided a way for the public to keep track of return rates — by state, city and zip codes.

With billions of federal dollars and political leverage at stake, most politicians are urging all residents to participate and be counted.

This year, however, some Republican leaders have raised questions about whether the census’s questions expand too far beyond the intent of the Constitution, and whether the government can be trusted to keep personal information private.

That has Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-NC., worried. As the ranking Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees the census, he’s concerned that skepticism about the census being fanned by “blatant misinformation” coming from “otherwise well-meaning conservatives” within his own party (Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, have been the most vocal census critics) will discourage Republicans from fully filling out their forms. And that’s bad for Republicans, McHenry said.

“Few things will make Nancy Pelosi happier than large numbers of conservatives failing to respond to the census,” McHenry wrote in an op-ed for the conservative Red State. “If we do not respond, we will not be counted, and if we are not counted, then we effectively will not exist. That would reduce conservatives’ power in elections, allow Democrats to draw more favorable congressional boundaries and help put more tax-hiking politicians in office.”

We took a look at several of McHenry’s claims about the census in the Red State article, as well as in a press release he issued.

The first relates to the very premise guiding McHenry’s concerns, that “Early census returns are showing that conservatives have been measurably less likely than liberals to return their census forms.” We found that claim was based on the thinnest of underpinnings, and is largely unsupported. It earned a False rating.

Next, we looked at two claims that seek to allay Republican fears that the census is too prying and cumbersome.

The first is that “the most private question on this year’s form asks for an individual’s race and that question has been asked by every census since the 1790 census conducted under then-President George Washington.” We examined the census questionnaires all the way back to 1790, and found that they provide interesting insight into changing attitudes about race over the course of U.S. history. While every census dealt with race issues, it hasn’t always been a matter of “check your race here.” In the first census in 1790, for example, the census asked about the number of free white males and females; the number of “other free persons” and the number of slaves. We rated this one Mostly True.

We also looked at McHenry’s claim that, “This census is also the shortest and least intrusive count in modern history.” The 2010 census has just 10 questions. That’s two more than the short form in 2000, but in 2000, one out of six households would get a long form, which had 53 questions. There is no short form this year — everyone gets the 10-question version. So it’s arguable which of those is shorter. No other census in modern history comes close to being as short as 10 questions. And so we rated this one Mostly True.

As a bonus, we draw your attention to one more census claim, courtesy of our friends at PolitiFact Texas. It’s a claim from U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, that a census audit found more than 370,000 Texans were missed by the 2000 census, costing $1 billion in federal aid. They found that Reyes’ claim relies on an outdated report based on numbers the Census Bureau has said were flawed. It earned our worst rating, Pants on Fire!

From Radio Business Report:

A subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is planning to probe whether the word about the 2010 Census is being effectively delivered in certain “hard-to-reach” areas.

The hearing, entitled “The 2010 Census Communications Contract: The Media Plan In Hard To Count Areas” will be heard by the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives. The date is 2/24/10 at 2PM eastern.

The subcommittee is chaired by William Lacy Clay (D-MO), with Patrick McHenry (R-NC) serving as Ranking Member.

Check out the letter from Rep. Patrick McHenry, ranking member on the subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives that was sent to the Census Bureau on Monday: Cost Overrun Letter 10/19/09

WASHINGTON – Congressman Patrick McHenry (NC-10), Ranking Member on the Census Oversight Subcommittee, released the following statement in response to the troubling admission by the U.S. Census Bureau that its cost estimation models are a complete failure.  The recently concluded address canvassing operation went over budget by 25%.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) also reports that failures in the fingerprint training process led to the hiring of as many as 200 temporary census workers with criminal backgrounds.

“Republicans and Democrats alike stand ready to provide adequate funding for a successful census.  But it now seems that the Census Bureau is incapable of determining what that cost will be.

“While I appreciate Dr. Groves being forthright and understand that these problems are not of his making, corrective action must take place immediately.  The 2010 Decennial, which is already funded to the tune of $14.7 billion, is just around the corner.  The Census Bureau must fix its costs estimation model quickly and report back to Congress with an accurate figure.

“The Census Bureau will soon begin hiring hundreds of thousands of temporary workers and yet its safeguards against hiring criminals are in jeopardy.  GAO has identified insufficient training in fingerprint-taking as the cause of this failure.

“Bureaucratic incompetence that leads to the hiring of criminals as census takers threatens the integrity of 2010 Decennial.  This problem must be fixed immediately and assurances must be given to Congress and the American people that it will not happen again.”

In what I can best describe as a State of the Census Address, Census Bureau Director Robert M. Groves presented a detailed outline of his future plans before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives on 9/22/09. I have named the speech  “The Groves Plan.” (Click the link for an 11 page transcript of the testimony). The plan is insightful and definitely worth reading.

By Congressman Patrick McHenry (NC-10)

When ACORN was announced as a national partner with the Census Bureau, I had grave concerns that the accuracy and integrity of the 2010 census would be jeopardized.

One of ACORN’s responsibilities would have been to recruit census workers.  Given ACORN’s propensity for falsifying government documents, it seemed illogical that their employees would now be handling census forms.  The Census Bureau was, in effect, inviting fraud in the 2010 census.

As the Ranking Republican on the Census Oversight Subcommittee, I privately encouraged the Bureau to reconsider.  Subsequently, the Bureau and I engaged in a confrontational public dispute over their relationship with ACORN.

The Bureau would eventually listen to reason and agreed that ACORN could not be trusted to recruit census workers, but they continued to defend their partnership with this criminal enterprise.  When the despicable conduct of ACORN was caught on tape and broadcast on BigGoverment.com, the Bureau officially got out of the business of apologizing for ACORN.

New Census Bureau Director Robert Groves deserves our respect for doing the right thing.  Immediately following his confirmation, Director Groves pledged to me that he would seriously review ACORN’s partnership status.  It is clear to me that Director Groves had ACORN on a short leash.

Director Groves’ decision is particularly remarkable considering that he was appointed by a Democratic President with close ties to the group.  ACORN has essentially become the political field staff of the Democratic Party.  Without question, there are many people in the Obama Administration who are unhappy with Groves’ decision.

Being dropped by the Census Bureau is proving to be a tipping point for ACORN, which has received at least $53 million in taxpayer funding.  In March, Senator David Vitter offered an amendment that would have prevented ACORN from receiving additional federal funding.  That amendment failed 53-43.  On Monday, a similar amendment passed 83-7.

The floodgates have opened.  Today, the Los Angeles Times offered harsh words for ACORN in a scathing editorial and Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is questioning ACORN’s federal funding.

Now, every federal agency and every elected official must seriously reconsider their relationship with ACORN.

The GOP wants some questions answered from the man at the top, Robert M. Groves:

McHenry: Is ACORN recruiting census workers or not?
Internal documents at odds with Bureau’s claims to Congress

WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Patrick McHenry, Ranking Member on the Census Oversight Subcommittee sent a letter to the U.S. Census Bureau concerning its partnership with ACORN.

While the Bureau has reported to Congress that ACORN is not recruiting census workers, internal documents contradict this claim.

Assuming the Bureau can reconcile these contradictions and verify that ACORN has been instructed not to recruit census workers, Congressman McHenry asked, “If ACORN has been singled out in such a manner because of its long criminal history, it begs the question, why are they a national partner in the first place?  If they cannot be trusted to recruit enumerators, it would seem to me that ACORN should be disqualified as a partner altogether.”

Dr. Robert M. Groves
Director
U.S. Census Bureau
4600 Silver Hill Road
Suitland, MD 20746

Dear Dr. Groves:

On July 10, 2009, Acting Director Thomas Mesenbourg wrote a letter to Congress clarifying the partnership role of the political advocacy group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.  Mr. Mesenbourg stated definitively that ACORN “will not be involved in recruiting or hiring census employees.”[1] However, information has come to my attention that requires further clarification from the Bureau.

Documents from the Bureau obtained by Judicial Watch contradict Mr. Mesenbourg’s letter to Congress.  One such document details the organization’s partnership responsibilities, including “Identify job candidates and/or distribute and display recruiting materials.”  Bearing his signature from February 12, 2009, this form indicates that Mr. Mesenbourg approved ACORN’s role as a recruiter of census enumerators.[2]

Furthermore, promotional materials for the national partnership program indicate very clearly that partners will play a role in recruiting enumerators.[3]

A) How do you reconcile this evidence with Mr. Mesenbourg’s letter to Congress?

B) If ACORN has been instructed specifically not to recruit enumerators, please provide
the dated correspondence between the Bureau and ACORN that verifies this.

C) Additionally, please provide a list of other national partners that have been instructed
not to recruit enumerators.

D) If ACORN has been singled out in such a manner because of its long criminal history,
it begs the question, why are they a national partner in the first place?  If they cannot
be trusted to recruit enumerators, it would seem to me that ACORN should be
disqualified as a partner altogether.

In a document provided to Congress, the Bureau states that partnering organizations would be disqualified if they “could distract from the Census Bureau’s mission.”[4] An internal document from the Bureau states that groups will be disqualified if they “might make people fearful of participating in the Census.”[5]

E) How does the criminal background of ACORN reflect positively on the Census
Bureau’s mission?

F) As a criminal enterprise, how could ACORN in no way distract from the Bureau’s
mission?

Please submit written responses to the questions above to the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives by August 24, 2009.  Should you have any questions or need any additional information, please contact Alexis Rudakewych at (202) 225-2576.

Sincerely,

Patrick T. McHenry
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Information Policy,
Census, and National Archives

[1]  See Bureau letter to Mr. McHenry (July 20, 2009)
[2]  See Bureau partnership form (February 12, 2009)
[3]  See Bureau Form D-3207, Become a 2010 Census Partner, (April 2008)
[4]  See 2010 Census Partnership Program, Partner Selection Process and Guidelines, page 2
[5]  See Email, Barbara A. Harris, (March 17, 2009)

MyTwoCensus has spent a significant amount of time in the past week investigating the relationship between Draftfcb, GlobalHue, and the U.S. Census Bureau. We obtained the following document from a Census Bureau insider that shows how this site’s reports have led to congress investigating this $200 million contract: