The Census is Coming! The Census is Coming!

The census is coming! Make sure you're counted!

When the first U.S. census was conducted in 1790, cries of undercount were heard across the land. Surely there were more than about 4 million residents in the new nation!  

Ever since, the Census Bureau has made an effort to conduct an accurate count of every person¹ residing in the United States every ten years.  All residents of the United States must be counted, including people of all ages, races, ethnic groups, citizens and non-citizens.

The U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 2) mandates this headcount to determine each state’s Congressional representation. The count also determined the taxes each state paid the government.

The census has taken on a wide variety of uses since then.  The numbers affect funding for states and local governments, determine governmental representation at all levels, influence business investment and help inform decision makers about how the community is changing – information that is crucial to many planning decisions, such as where to provide services for the elderly, where to build new roads and schools, or where to locate job training centers.

In the past, most households received a short-form questionnaire, while one household in six received a long form that contained additional questions and provided more detailed socioeconomic information about the population.  The 2010 Census will be a short-form only census and will count all residents living in the United States as well as ask for name, sex, age, date of birth, race, ethnicity, relationship and housing tenure – taking just minutes to complete. More detailed socioeconomic information is now collected through the American Community Survey (ACS), which provides current data every year, rather than once every 10 years².
 
Census data directly affect how more than $400 billion per year in federal and state funding is allocated to communities for neighborhood improvements, public health, education, transportation and much more. That’s more than $4 trillion over a 10-year period.

With the state and local news dominated by stories of DEFICIT and RECEIVERSHIP, we cannot afford to sit idly by and hope that the Census Bureau, through its employees and media buys, will provide Michigan and all its local governments with an accurate count.  As is the case with elections…

IF YOU DON’T PARTICIPATE IN THE PROCESS, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE RESULTS!

Census Day – April 1, 2010– is almost upon us.  There is a great deal to do to get the word out throughout our state and time is passing.  We are the only state to have experienced population loss each of the last four years.  The Detroit region has also suffered losses this decade and the City of Detroit has continued, although at a much lower rate, its 50+ year out-migration flow. 

We must be ready and willing to do everything we can to make sure everyone is counted.  We must reach out to the disenfranchised – numbers that have grown exponentially due to unemployment, foreclosures, etc. – and let them know that their participation may result in increased funding for their support³.  We must help new immigrants understand that completing a census form will not harm them in any way.

The Census Bureau has created a variety of programs and materials for getting the word out.  On the government side, the Bureau encourages and supports the creation of Complete Count Committees.  The Census Education Project (my favorite) creates curriculum materials for students and teachers across the K-12 spectrum.  Promotional materials have been produced in a wide variety of languages for use in ethnic communities across the country.

The staff at the Data Driven Detroit (D3) is ready to assist in any way we can.  We recognize the importance of complete and accurate data and want to make sure that Detroit, the region, and all of Michigan do everything they can to make that happen.  We are an official partner with the Census Bureau, are providing technical support to the City of Detroit, serve on the advisory committee for the Michigan Nonprofit Association’s 2010 Census Project, and “talk census” wherever and whenever we can.

An inaccurate census will only hurt the city and the region’s ability to go forward.  There are no do-overs, and whining about an undercount will not change the results.

To take liberties with a tag line for Detroit Public Schools, ‘I get it….do you?’ “

1 The history of the census shows that though every person was to be “counted,” not everyone always counted equally.
 
² Results from the 2008 American Community Survey will be released on September 22.  This release will cover all states, as well as counties and communities with populations of 65,000 or more.

³ The Michigan Nonprofit Association has launched a targeted effort to bring nonprofits to the table to understand the critical role they play in reaching their clients and constituents.
 

Tough Job Market is Tougher on Those with “Black” Names

Her future may be determined by her name.

 

As the recession grows deeper and competition for jobs grows fiercer, the black community is being disproportionately passed over for jobs. Recently, the New York Times carried a story about how African Americans are “whitewashing” their resumes to avoid job discrimination. Many are using initials to disguise “black-sounding” names.

Experts have long known that blacks face deep discrimination in the job application process. In a 2006 study, Devah Pager, a sociologist at Princeton University, had students with fictitious resumes apply for work with 350 employers, for mainly low-wage, entry-level jobs. A key part of the study was to discover how employers would respond to white applicants who had conviction records, including drug busts, and black applicants who had no criminal background. The findings: White ex-cons were called back for interviews 17% of the time compared to 14% for crime-free black applicants.

Moreover, a white-sounding name on an application is worth as much as an extra eight years of work experience, according to Marianne Bertrand, an economist at the University of Chicago. In 2003, researchers at the UC Graduate School of Business and Massachusetts Institute of Technology sent out 5,000 fake resumes in response to random help-wanted ads in The Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune. The study entitled “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” showed job seekers with white-sounding names were 50 percent more likely to get called for interviews. In other words, blacks have to mail 15 resumes for every 10 resumes sent by whites in order to land one interview.

It may seem to be a paradox that Americans elected an African American president with a name like Barack Obama, but at the same time, balk at hiring a highly-trained employee with a “black-sounding” name. Jabbar Sykes is a 37-year-old mathematician who graduated from the prestigious, historically black Morehouse College. As he looks for a job in information technology, he told the New York Times that he’s not taking any chances.

For the purposes of his resume, he’s now “Barry J. Sykes.”