By Larry Jones
September 29, 2008

During a September 23 hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services and International Security, Robert Goldenkoff, director of strategic issues for the Government Accountability Office, told members of the panel that the U.S. Census Bureau’s plans for reducing the undercount and improving participation in the 2010 Census appears to be comprehensive and integrated.

If implemented according to plans, Goldenkoff said it should position the agency to address the undercount. However, he cautioned that a number of challenges and uncertainties remain such as the technical shortcomings of the handheld computers that census workers plan to use; and there is no assurance the communications campaign, designed to increase awareness of the census, will actually get traditionally hard-to-count individuals to respond.

There are three key components to the Census Bureau’s plans for a successful operation: building a complete and accurate address list, implementing an integrated communications campaign to increase awareness and encourage participation, and fielding special enumeration programs targeted toward historically undercounted populations. Koldenkoff said the success of the 2010 Census “will depend in large part on the extent to which the various operations (1) start and finish on schedule, (2) are implemented in the proper sequence, (3) are adequately tested and refined, and (4) receive appropriate staffing and funding.”

To underscore the importance of the census, Goldenkoff reminded subcommittee members that census data is used to apportion seats in Congress, redraw congressional districts, and to allocate billions of dollars in federal assistance to state and local governments.

With respect to federal aid, over $300 billion each year is allocated to state and local governments. An undercount of a city’s population could cause it to lose millions of dollars over a ten-year period. Traditionally the undercount has had a disproportionate impact on various groups who mainly reside in urban areas. Goldenkoff explained that minorities, renters and children are more likely to be undercounted in the census while more affluent groups, such as people who own vacation homes, are more likely to be counted more than once.

The census Bureau is depending on three operations to help include the hard-to-count in the upcoming census: its Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) program, address canvassing, and Group Quarters Validation. The LUCA program provides state and local governments the opportunity to review and update the addresses and maps that the Census Bureau will use to deliver questionnaires to people residing in their communities. During Address Canvassing, temporary census workers will go door-to door in communities across the nation to verify the addresses of all housing units including those provided by local governments through LUCA. Further, the Census Bureau will conduct a Group Quarters Validation to validate the addresses of people living in group situations such as college dormitories, nursing homes, migrant labor camps, prisons, and group homes.

“In summary, the Bureau has developed a wide variety of plans and programs to position it to address the differential undercount. Further, the Bureau’s efforts are designed to reinforce one another, so that a household missed in one operation—say, address canvassing—can be picked up in a subsequent activity such as nonresponse follow-up. At the same time, the Bureau’s plans reflect lessons learned from the 2000 Census,” Goldenkoff said.