Got my Census notice

[Kirk W]

31 minutes ago, docj said:

Does it really help anyone for him to check all those boxes?

That kind of surprised me also, but the other question is, does it harm anyone to share that information, especially since it would be a "to the best of my knowledge" answer for most of us. 

[docj]

59 minutes ago, Kirk W said:

That kind of surprised me also, but the other question is, does it harm anyone to share that information, especially since it would be a "to the best of my knowledge" answer for most of us. 

I don't have any problem sharing it and my son thought that my description of his son's ethnicity was rather amusing!

[Ray,IN]

On 3/21/2020 at 8:38 AM, Kirk W said:

Interesting.... I got my first one on March 12 and went online to complete it a day or so later. I just got my second notice on March 19. Makes me wonder if the reminders are all automatic even if you have already responded? 

That was dates on letterhead, somehow they were swapped in delivery. I assume the USPS has it's COVID  problems to deal with too.

[Kirk W]

17 hours ago, docj said:

my son thought that my description of his son's ethnicity was rather amusing!

That is probably true for many of us. Pam & I discussed just what we should put into that box. Not only are we not completely sure of our origins, but how many different nationalities do you put in? What we eventually did was to put in a hyphenated combination of the two we have heard most often for each or us. I used English/Welsh and for Pam we did similar but we both have several others that could probably have been included. That is the one question which I felt was unclear. It may be that what they really are trying to track is how we think of ourselves, in which case for us should be American. 

[chirakawa]

I just put "unknown" in that blank space.  I find it pretty strange that in a country where we keep being told that we're all one people and we should be colorblind and not label people in terms of race and not discriminate, etc.........................that the government keeps wanting to separate us by race.  It's not just the census, it's every form you fill out everywhere.

Not a big deal to me, just an observation.

Edited March 23, 2020 by chirakawa

[ARGO]

Cripes, I put in "HUMAN" & it was happy w/that.

[TXiceman]

Rather than pick an ethnic designation, I put in Anglo and it was accepted.  Our families have been here for decades and are a mix of German, English, Swedish, Irish, a little Native American....that we know of.  I guess I could have seen if it would would have taken "Mutt".

American Heinz 57 

Ken

[sandsys]

If I was looking at heritage, Dave's would have been easy since he is mostly Swedish with a little Norwegian thrown in. Years ago, when I asked my dad about our heritage he said Heinz 57. I know at least some of my ancestors were adults during the Civil War here. That why I decided to go with USA. I don't like to say American because that implies the USA is all of America and we know that's not true.

Linda

[Ray,IN]

This reminded me of something my wife said when we were first married. She said her grandparents came to the U.S.A. from France. When her mother was small her parents told her  they would not allow anyone to speak French, saying "We are Americans now".

[Lou Schneider]

The only constitutionally mandated purpose for the Census is to count the number of people in the country to properly apportion seats in the House of Representatives.   Everything else has been added by the bureaucracy to justify one government program or another.

Edited March 24, 2020 by Lou Schneider

[Kirk W]

7 hours ago, Lou Schneider said:

 Everything else has been added by the bureaucracy to justify one government program or another.

I'm not sure that some of the expansion of data wan't mandated by Congress at various times, but however that has come to be, they are the main source of data about our people. I visited the site usconstitution.net and found the following information. 

Quote

Today, the controlling law for the U.S. Census is Title 13 of the U.S. Code That law requires that the census be conducted on or about April 1, 1980, and every ten years after that. The returns must be made available within nine months in order to apportion members of the House of Representatives to each of the states. In the intervening years the law requires the Census Bureau to gather statistics about the residents of the United States for use by Congress.

Quote

There are fines for non-response and for false response as well, though the amount has risen from the 1790's $20. Today failure to respond can result in a $100 fine; providing false answers is a more severe offense, and carries a $500 fine. Recent news reports, however, indicate that punishment for failure to respond is not usually enforced. The controlling section of the Code is 13 USC 221.

 

[rynosback]

Done, I used the rainbow dr as my address. Did you all do the same?

[TXiceman]

I use my Rainbow Dr, address as well.

Ken

[chirakawa]

10 hours ago, rynosback said:

Done, I used the rainbow dr as my address. Did you all do the same?

No.

[Kirk W]

10 hours ago, rynosback said:

I used the rainbow dr as my address. Did you all do the same?

I did 10 years ago when it was my domicile address but now I have that and another that is my domicile I used it. 

[bobsallyh]

We used Rainbow Dr. from 2003- 2017. Only reason we changed, we bought an RV lot in Yuma, AZ. and we now use that address. Still use the mail service during summer travel.

[rynosback]

I have a SD License, but use my Rainbow drive address for everything but my license and tags. This is correct yes?

[docj]

1 hour ago, rynosback said:

I have a SD License, but use my Rainbow drive address for everything but my license and tags. This is correct yes?

The census form asks where you will be on April 1, 2020.  As far as I could tell it doesn't have anything to do with where your legal residence is or anything like that.

[sandsys]

1 hour ago, docj said:

The census form asks where you will be on April 1, 2020.  As far as I could tell it doesn't have anything to do with where your legal residence is or anything like that.

But your representation in government is determined by where you vote so put that address if you want to be represented in future governmental decisions. In 2010 we were in California on the magical date but we sure didn't want our representation there.

Linda Sand

[docj]

48 minutes ago, sandsys said:

But your representation in government is determined by where you vote so put that address if you want to be represented in future governmental decisions. In 2010 we were in California on the magical date but we sure didn't want our representation there.

Linda Sand

With all due respect you are ignoring the instructions and defeating the purpose of the census. The whole idea is to understand how many people are in each location on a particular day.  For decades people in other people's home, etc, have responded to the census with respect to where they are when asked by a census taker.  If you look at old census forms from the 19th century, they don't say "oh my address is really in another state"!

[sandsys]

1 hour ago, docj said:

With all due respect you are ignoring the instructions and defeating the purpose of the census. The whole idea is to understand how many people are in each location on a particular day.  For decades people in other people's home, etc, have responded to the census with respect to where they are when asked by a census taker.  If you look at old census forms from the 19th century, they don't say "oh my address is really in another state"!

It looks like we'll have to agree to disagree. The original purpose of the census, which continues to this day, was to determine how many congressional representatives should be assigned to each state. Which is why some people here have said they only list how many people live at that location without answering any other questions. I want to be counted where I vote so I can vote for people who would represent me. I did not want California to get representatives just because I happened to be in their state that day.

Linda

[Kirk W]

6 hours ago, sandsys said:

The original purpose of the census, which continues to this day, was to determine how many congressional representatives should be assigned to each state.

That is the purpose that is stated in the Constitution and the quote above which also states that comes from the bill under which the Census Bureau operates today. "The returns must be made available within nine months in order to apportion members of the House of Representatives to each of the states. "

[docj]

6 hours ago, sandsys said:

The original purpose of the census, which continues to this day, was to determine how many congressional representatives should be assigned to each state.

Yes, that is the constitutional basis for the existence of the census.  But today the census data provides the input for many federal programs including such things as school lunch aid, Medicaid, etc.  In order to properly fund those programs it's important to know how many people need the assistance and that means you have to know how many people there are who will avail themselves of those services.  It makes no difference where they vote! 

No doubt the Founders never considered a country in which residents of a State lived in many others. This is yet another example of how we continue to interpret the words of the Constitution to meet the needs of the 21st century.  

[Kirk W]

5 minutes ago, docj said:

No doubt the Founders never considered a country in which residents of a State lived in many others.

Quote

Today, the controlling law for the U.S. Census is Title 13 of the U.S. Code That law requires that the census be conducted on or about April 1, 1980, and every ten years after that. The returns must be made available within nine months in order to apportion members of the House of Representatives to each of the states. In the intervening years the law requires the Census Bureau to gather statistics about the residents of the United States for use by Congress. The decennial census is provided for at 13 USC 141.

 

[docj]

31 minutes ago, Kirk W said:

the controlling law for the U.S. Census is Title 13 of the U.S. Code 

No one is disputing that, but neither should you ignore the fact that Census data is used for a lot  more than what was defined in that act. Many federally-funded programs need input data that necessitates knowing how many people avail themselves of the services being provided.  For example, if you are a full-time RVing family that takes temporary "residence" in another State while dad or mom works on a temporary job (as is the case of my neighbors) you may avail yourselves of various federally funded programs.  For those it's irrelevant that the family may have a legal residence in, for example, South Dakota.

I recognize that by reporting oneself as being in a particular location, other than your residence State, at the time of the census could affect the representation your "home State" receives, but the wide disparities in the populations of the States makes changes in representation due to population changes a very slow and statistically insignificant process for most States. To put it bluntly, there's no way in the world that South Dakota is ever going to get another representative in Congress so my reporting myself as being in TX for Census purposes is totally irrelevant.  If you're a TX resident, do you really think that reporting yourself as being in CA at the time of the census is actually going to change anything?  The statistically average Congressional district contains ~750,000 people; your presence or absence is of little significance for representation purposes but it might be far more important for all the other programs that rely on the government having an accurate headcount.

I seriously doubt that my arguments will change your mind and you've already completed the forms anyway.  But, possibly, others will read them and understand the importance of completing the Census forms in manner that is consistent with the questions asked on them.

Edited March 26, 2020 by docj