Word: census
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...census poses other problems. A report by the National Academy of Sciences notes an increase in "married women working outside the home and not so available as before to provide information to the census taker." Worries Deputy Census Director Daniel Levine-"I'm well aware of the fact that we have had Watergate, Koreagate and CIA scandals and that surveys taken outside the Census Bureau suggest that people have less and less trust in their Government...
...their incomes less than candidly: those citizens who do not report their full earnings to the tax collector. The blossoming of America's underground economy means that a lot of income is not going to be accounted for. Admits Levine: "All this does affect the quality of the census. There's no doubt about it." Those who lie or refuse to complete the form could be fined...
This year even transients and drifters are going to be tracked down. As in previous counts, census forms will be distributed to hotels, rooming houses and campgrounds; enumerators will visit missions, flophouses, all-night cinemas and tram and bus stations. For the first time census takers, often working in pairs for safety, will drop by pool halls, food-stamp centers, employment offices. They will approach vagrants on street corners and ask whether they have already been counted...
Ironically, sampling techniques are so sophisticated that the census is likely to turn up few surprises. The count is expected to show that 221.7 million people live in the U.S.-an increase of 18.5 million over 1970. Because of population shifts, the South and West will gain 14 congressional seats at the expense of the Northeastern and North Central states. The accuracy of these samplings raises another question: Why should the nation bear the expense and bother of a decennial head count at all? Experts generally agree on the need for the census. Says Ben Wattenberg, of the American Enterprise...
They traveled by foot, boat and horseback through 18 states, districts, and territories that stretched from Maine to Georgia, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. Armed with their own quill pens, the 650 census takers of 1790 spent 18 months counting the American people. The total: 3,929,214. President George Washington, however suspected an undercount. In a letter to Gouverneur Morris, then U.S. Commissioner to Great Britain, Washington worried about the "indolence of the mass, and want of activity" by many census takers. Proof of this thesis: Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who was in charge...