Census 2010: What's new?

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Census 2010: What's new?Census 2010: What's new?For decades, millions of Americans have been asked to fill out lengthy census forms, tallying everything from how many people lived in their house to how many toilets they owned. This month, the questionnaires arriving in America's mailboxes will ask only 10 questions — just four more than the first national head count in 1790. "We like to say you can fill out the 10 questions in only 10 minutes," said Mike Burns, a spokesman for the U.S. Census Bureau. Census officials hope the short forms will encourage millions more people to fill out the questionnaire, instead of finding it intrusive and throwing it in the trash. To be sure, census officials still ask the probing questions. But five years ago, they began taking a new approach to gathering details: surveying 250,000 people each month on a variety of topics, rather than hitting up millions of households with a long census form. every 10 years. Previously 1 in 6 households received the long form, while the rest received the shorter form. that now will go to everyone. Aided by faster and smarter computers, census demographers now constantly extrapolate survey findings to reflect population characteristics, living conditions and commuting patterns. The changes reflect a more nimble agency that is responding to an increasingly diverse, mobile and changing America that wants and needs rich and timely -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Advertisement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- feedback. "Information comes at the speed of light now," said Sonny Le, a Bay Area census spokesman. "We can't afford to wait every 10 years."

The more frequent reports allow cities and businesses to closely follow trends, making necessary adjustments year-to-year instead of waiting a decade to realize the culture has shifted.

For instance, instead of waiting a decade to see how the percent of working couples in Bay Area cities had changed since 2000, the surveys allowed city planners, businesses and sociologists to learn that from 2007 to 2008 such couples grew by 8 percent in Mountain View, 9 percent in Santa Clara, 3 percent in San Jose and a whopping 11 percent in Concord.

In another trend-tracking report over the same period, the survey found carpooling in Santa Clara County actually dropped by 0.6 percent while it grew slightly for the rest of the country. Some experts said carpoolers here returned to solo commuting because lower employment had lessened traffic.

"I love having the data on a more timely basis," said Hans Johnson, a demographer at the Public Policy Institute of California,Pearl earrings, a nonpartisan think tank in San Francisco. The quicker surveys allow him to track inequality of income and education between California regions; he can then quickly alert politicians and reporters if a region is starting to slip instead of waiting until it's too late.

Despite the advantages of monthly surveys, the decennial census is here to stay.

Thank the founding fathers who wrote a national head count every 10 years — not a survey — into the Constitution to determine how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives. Short of an amendment, the decennial census must be conducted.

But it can still evolve.

For the first time, the bureau this year will send out questionnaires in Spanish,SupplementChinese and three other languages to every household in specific neighborhoods, even if some people there speak only English or another language.

"We discovered that our return rate is higher when we do that," census spokeswoman Michele Lowe said. The alternative, she said, #xis sending out bilingual door-knockers.

Also for the first time, the census will report on the number of same-sex households in the country. #xIt's done by putting together answers to two questions:Supplementa person's gender and relationship to the head of household, including an "unmarried partner" category.

It's not a question the founding fathers would have asked.SupplementBut then again, the 2010 census isn't asking how many slaves we have.相关的主题文章：