Census

1970: Topeka, KS
1980: Wichita, KS
1990: Wichita, KS
2000: Wichita, KS
2010: Scottsdale, AZ

Do you agree with me, Joe, that the drive from San Angelo to Abilene is the worst on the planet?

I was born 17 miles from San Angelo, in Miles.

Exceeded only by the previous span between Wichita Falls and Abilene.
Endless two lanes intersected by teeny little towns bristling with local gendarmes.

My friend, Mike, holds the land-speed record for that stretch. He wanted to be at his girlfriend's dorm before it closed at 10PM. We were just leaving Wichita Falls a hair before 7pm.

I shut my eyes several times as night closed around us and his '67 Mustang.

Joe(made it with ten minutes to spare.)Nation

PS The hard part was getting him to go below 50 on the sidestreets near the college.

I looked at my Census form today (I've been out of town) and the letter that comes with it says in bold Please complete and mail back the enclosed census form today.

The first question is: How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010? I don't know. It's not April 1 yet. What if I die? What if I decide to take in a homeless person before April 1?

Okay, I'll hurry up and fill it out and mail it in.

Maybe tomorrow.

So the government also paid to send me a postcard, after the census form came, stating, "You should have received your 2010 census form. Please fill out and return."

For my tax dollars, at the very least I figure the postcard could've had a picture of a jackalope on it.

I think the government knows us as well as our dentists do. Mine has me fill out a postcard to myself reminding me of my next (six months from now) appointment. I usually get it about two weeks before the date arrives. The office usually calls to confirm with me that I am indeed coming in for the cleaning about a week before AND they call again the DAY before.

I was talking to the fellow in the office who does most of the calling, after all these reminders and confirmations, they still have 20-30% no shows.

And don't get me started on people who are asked to RSVP for a dinner party, don't, and then SHOW up and can't figure out why the host hasn't set out a place setting for them, oh and the guy guest they brought along for company.

Joe(People live in their own teeny world)Nation

I still haven't filled out a census form...and have received no calls/emails/stops at my door. Now, I did move to Chicago last week so my mail/address is in transit.

I will resist for as long as I can. I'll even pay that $100 fine to ensure that no more money comes to Chicago, or Illinois.

I heard they will send the same census form again to everyone in case you failed to fill out the first one.

Nearly one in three Americans failed to return their census questionnaires by Friday’s official deadline, the Census Bureau said.


More forms were expected to be received over the weekend. Census workers will not begin going door to door until May 1 to count people who did not return their questionnaires by mail.

As of early Friday, the mail participation rate was 68 percent. The mail participation rate, which the bureau is using this year for the first time, is the percentage of forms mailed back by households that received them.

Unlike the mail response rate, which the census used in earlier counts, it excludes forms returned by the postal service as undeliverable, often because a house or apartment was vacant. The mail response rate was 67 percent in 2000. If the undeliverable forms had been excluded then, the mail participation rate would have been 72 percent.

Final rates for this year’s count will not be posted until early May, so it was unclear whether this year’s unprecedented publicity and marketing campaigns had reversed a decades-long decline.

Wisconsin logged the highest participation rate of any state, 78 percent, followed by Minnesota (76 percent) and Iowa (75 percent). The lowest rates were in New Mexico (59 percent) and Louisiana (60 percent). Livonia, Mich., recorded the highest rate, 85 percent, among places with 50,000 or more people.

An analysis by the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York found that 10 percent of counties had exceeded their 2000 rates by five percentage points or more. Some of the urban neighborhoods typically considered hardest to count appear to have been among the highest-rated areas this time.

The research center said the gains might be a result of the Census Bureau’s advertising campaign and community outreach as well as changing demographics.

In big cities, predominantly black areas tended to have lower participation rates than mostly white ones. Detroit was an exception. While Hispanic areas generally logged lower participation rates, that was not the case in Miami, Newark and New York.

I'm the one that didn't return it by the deadline. I never got a form.

A newspaper article noted that whole areas of San Juan County did not receive forms, but good news! A census worker was going to be at the MVD Tuesday and Wednesday. So, off I went. No census worker. Woman at motor vehicles said he had already left, but might be back tomorrow (Thursday). I mentioned the advice in the paper. "Well, he was here almost every day this week. He might be back tomorrow". Swell! The paper said Tuesday and Wednesday. She said, on Wednesday, that he had been there almost every day this week. Glad to see no real contradiction here. She did suggest I look around and see if he had left any forms on his desk. I check this out. Sure enough, there is a rectangular box with forms. They had Spanish and Navajo, of course. They had Vietnamese. They had one that might have been Hindi, and forms in one language I couldn't even guess at. Did you notice just one insignificant little language missing?

You don't need to read the questions to answer them. Check boxes at random. Where it calls for numbers, always opt for 1.

Absolutely brilliant. I'm gonna do it!