Don’t close the shutter on America’s annual snapshot
In recent years, you may have received a form from the Census Bureau asking such things as how many rooms you have in your house, what your family’s first language is, and whether you served in the military. This form, called the American Community Survey, might seem like a nuisance. But it is an invaluable tool for government leaders, business executives and researchers.
The federal government uses the survey to divvy up more than $400 billion in annual funding to
Survey aids business and government
states and localities for roads, education, health care and other programs. Private companies, particularly retailers, use it to decide where to locate stores and what to put on their shelves. Minnesota-based Target, for example, used the data to spot a trend of people moving back into cities, which prompted it to adjust its corporate strategy.
Formerly conducted every 10 years and known as the Census long form, the survey’s roots go back as far as 1850. In 2005, then-President George W. Bush and Congress decided that the long form should be made into an annual survey that would provide more timely data in between the decennial Census counts.
Despite its benefits and bipartisan heritage, the American Community Survey faces an uncertain future. In May, the Republican-led House voted to kill it. This week, a Senate committee starts considering its fate.
That Congress is even talking about killing such a vital program is incomprehensible.
The opponents’ main argument is that the survey is too intrusive. That would be true if it were conducted for the purpose of keeping records on people. But the information is compiled anonymously to get a composite picture of com- munities. Any smartphone with a tracking device is far more intrusive than the American Community Survey.
Critics also talk about the $240 million per year cost of the survey. That’s about 0.006% of federal spending. Perhaps the survey could be done more efficiently, but killing it to save money would be like a professional sports franchise trying to cut costs by eliminating its scouting department.
Most observers think the Senate will not follow the House’s lead and zero-out funding. Even so, supporters of the survey — which range from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to civil rights groups — fear the final version that reaches President Obama’s desk might make filling out the form voluntary.
That would be almost as bad as killing the survey, which is sent out to about 3 million households each year. The mandatory nature of the survey keeps participation rates high enough where the Census Bureau can get what it lacks by canvassing a small portion of the households that didn’t reply. (The rarely imposed penalties for non-compliance are $100 for not returning the form and $500 for providing false information. A Census worker who provides false information can be fined up to $5,000.) If Congress made the response voluntary, an additional $60 million or so would be needed every year to fund more door-to-door Census takers to visit enough homes to make the survey statistically valid.
Eliminating the survey altogether means Washington would likely have to decide how tax dollars are spent in the modern equivalent of smoke-filled rooms. Equally important, businesses and researchers would have a hard time monitoring demographic changes and making strategic decisions.
This, it is often said, is an information age. It is hard to see why the United States would want to operate in the dark.