In preparation for next year’s decennial census count, Census Bureau Chief Kenneth Prewitt asked mayors attending the closing plenary session for their advice on a proposal to increase the number of people who return the census survey form. The Bureau is considering asking each city to set a goal to improve its citizens’ response rate by at least 5 percent over the 1990 census count. Not only were mayors in favor of setting higher goals, but Mayor Savage set off a chain reaction when she challenged the Bureau to set the goal higher. Several mayors echoed her remarks, pointing out the importance of the census, which is used as a basis for distributing political power and federal aid among state and local governments. Mayor Harris even urged that the goal be set at 10 percent.

For many decades the response rate has been declining due to what Prewitt describes as "civic disengagement," because in his words "people are just too busy or don’t care" to participate. In 1970, 85 percent of the nation’s population returned the census survey form. During the 1980 census the response rate dropped to 75 percent and in 1990 it went down even further to 65 percent. "If the average response rate could be increased to 70 percent in 2000, it would make an enormous difference for the Census Bureau in trying to address the undercount problem," he said.

Prewitt explained that by getting more people to return the survey forms, the Bureau will have fewer people to find and more time to concentrate on locating the "hard-to-count" segment of the population, which most often go un-counted. In the past, studies have shown that minorities, immigrants, children and poor individuals make up the vast majority of those who are undercounted.

Prewitt told mayors that of the 118 million households that will receive the census questionnaire in 2000, the Bureau estimates that only 72 million will take the time to return it. Therefore, an intensive effort must be made to find the remaining 46 million. Prewitt said that only about 5 or 6 million of the 46 million are in the hard-to-count category. The remaining ì40 million don’t want to be bothered," he said.