The 2000 Census is under way, and the issue of whether the “long-form” version, received by about one-sixth of the population, is too intrusive has become a political issue. Local media have reported many Census-related stories, two of which caught my eye last week. Both dealt with people who objected to filling out the forms because of concerns about privacy.
In one, a woman questioned why the government needed the information it asked for and said that it had overtones of the Holocaust. The other, a retired military officer, took particular exception to financial questions about income and value of housing. One story also cited a member of the Libertarian party who argued that citizens should only report the number of people in the household and leave the rest blank.
As someone who used to field queries from the public and the media for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, I could only shake my head and chuckle in bemused frustration. In my experience, when members of the general public want information about the U.S. economy or society, they expect it to be readily available, free, detailed and up-to-date. When these expectations are not met, citizens often are not happy.
I remember well the indignation of one woman when I told her that the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not tabulate a separate Consumer Price Index for Chamberlain, S.D. Or the time someone demanded to know how many farmers had liquidated their operations in each Minnesota county in the previous year. When I replied that such information simply was not available, his response was “Well, can you have it by Monday?”
These Census stories in the media, together with my experience as a minor government functionary, convince me that many people have a divided attitude about government and information.
Folks, you cannot have it both ways. Information is valuable, for a society and an individual. And information is not free. It takes resources to collect and tabulate information about a country and its citizens. Even with ample resources, anyone conducting a Census or a survey cannot get useful results unless enough people are willing to cooperate by furnishing information.
The Bureau of the Census has run advertisements calling on citizens to fill out their Census forms so that communities will get their fair share of government appropriations for infrastructure and services. Perhaps such an approach is more effective than broad appeals to civic duty, or reminders that law requires complying with the census. But this approach runs the risk of reducing the Census to a squabble over the size of pieces of pie. It is more important than that.
The constitution requires that a Census be conducted every 10 years “in such manner as they (Congress) shall by law direct.” Virtually all of the questions on the long and short forms are there because of some specific mandate from Congress. The fact that our elected officials chose to require the tabulation of certain information may reveal inordinate nosiness on their part. But it also shows a clear consensus that they believe resources can be used more effectively if there is good basic information about the U.S. population.
Most of the published economic data comes from monthly surveys carried out by the Bureau of the Census or the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The most important, the Current Population Survey, interviews 50,000 households each month.
Unemployment and income data are computed from this survey. There are about 90 million households in the country, so about one half of one percent of households are asked to respond. This is a remarkably small fraction of the population on which to base decisions such as Fed monetary policy or state and federal fiscal projections.
The information from this small sample is useful only if it can be compared with a much larger questioning of the entire population on a recurring basis. Some people apparently resent telling the government how much they earn or what they spend on utilities and mortgage payments. But without such information to benchmark surveys carried out on a more frequent basis, there is no practical way to produce accurate estimates of unemployment, incomes, and price changes.
If a majority of the population really believes that the Census should not ask more than the number of persons at a particular address, they should so inform their Representatives and Senators. Congress can make any changes it desires. But people need to recognize that if the Census is reduced to such a bare bones level, both government and business will spend money less effectively. As with all matter economics, there is a trade-off.
© 2000 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.