
          Sampling the 2000 Census
          By Torian, Sarah E.Sarah E. Torian
          Vol. 20, No. 3, 1998 pp. 24-25
          
          In the upcoming months the Supreme Court will be making an
important decision that will affect what has been termed the "most
important civil rights issue for the remainder of the 105th
Congress." The issue is the Decennial Census and whether or not
scientific sampling methods will be used to improve the accuracy of
this population count in the year 2000.
          The Decennial Census, a vital part of a fair and functioning
democracy, is becoming  less effective. For the first time since the
1940 census, the 1990 Census was less accurate than its
predecessor. The 1990 net undercount or percentage of people who are
missed by the Census count, was 50 percent greater than its 1980
counterpart. According to the Census Bureau, the 1990 Census missed
8.4 million people and double-counted 4.4 million, resulting in an
undercount of 4 million. Of that 4 million, over 1.5 million (39
percent) were in the eleven Southern states.
          Even more disturbing is the "differential undercount," the
difference between the undercount of whites and the undercount of
ethnic minority groups. The "differential undercount" for the 1990
Census was the highest ever recorded since the Census Bureau began
conducting post-Census evaluations in 1940. Most of those overlooked
in the Census are children, people of color, and the rural and urban
poor. Children under the age of 18, a group that represents 26
percent of the total national population, accounted for an incredible
52 percent of the undercount.
          Considering the influence of the Census, these statistics are
quite disturbing. The Census figures are used to allocate seats in
the House of Representatives, to distribute tens of billions of dollars annually in federal, state and
local program funds, to apportion electoral college votes, and to
carry out congressional, state, and local redistricting, among other
things. Since poor, minority, and central city populations and
children, those most frequently undercounted, are also communities
that are often most in need of social services and economic
development programs and are frequently poorly represented as a
constituency, it becomes increasingly important to ensure as fair and
accurate a count as possible. Otherwise, these groups are denied
important services and are denied their right to fair and equal
representation.
          Factors such as poverty, illiteracy, lack of education, fear or
mistrust of government, language barriers, geography, and changing
family structure all contribute to these lower rates of coverage.
          In an  effort to address the limitations of present enumerations
methods, the Census Bureau, with the help of National
Academy of Sciences, General Accounting Office and Commerce
Department's Office of Inspector General panels, produced "The Plan
for Census 2000." This plan combines a more aggressive direct
enumeration effort, including several mailings to every household and
multiple response options, with modern scientific sampling techniques
to complete the count of the final non-responding households.
          This plan is currently under attack by a Republican-led House
that wants scientific sampling methods banned from use in collecting
Census data and filed a lawsuit, arguing that the use of sampling
methods would violate federal law. The Clinton administration, which
supports the use of scientific sampling, is challenging a three-judge
federal panel's August 25 decision in that case that invalidated the
Census Bureau's plan without ruling on the constitutionality of
sampling.
          The Supreme Court will hear arguments November 30 and will likely
decide by March whether scientific sampling can be used in the 2000
Census. A decision by March is vital. Since the lower court's ruling,
administration officials have been preparing for the upcoming Census
on a "dual track." one using scientific sampling and the other using
only direct headcount methods. lawyers for both the House and the
administration said, "If the current uncertainty continues beyond
March 1999 [the] ability to conduct the most accurate census possible
will be seriously threatened."
          For more information on scientific sampling in the 2000 Census,
visit http://www.census2000.org and
http://198.5.6.212/lcef/census2000
          
            Sarah E. Torian is program assistant in communications
at the Southern Regional Council
          
        