Word: census
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This decade's census is one of the biggest, costliest and most ambitious statistical exercises in history. Using 120 million forms, 5,000 tons of paper and 85 tons of ink, the survey will amass and tabulate more than 3 billion answers and record them on 5,000 miles of microfilm. To process this avalanche of data, the Census Bureau has had to design (and patent) special scanning equipment that will be plugged into a giant UNIVAC 1100 computer around the clock for months. Meanwhile, an army of 250,000 census takers, or "enumerators," and 15,000 office workers...
This week the nation's 86 million households will receive by mail the blue, white and gray census form; 90% will be instructed to send back the questionnaire, using the provided postage-paid envelope, on April 1, which has been designated Census Day. Households failing to comply within several weeks will receive visits from the enumerators. They will also call on the 10% of the households that are not required to mail back the forms. This group is located mainly in sparsely populated areas. (Past censuses have shown that mail often goes astray in these regions...
...defense, the Census Bureau notes that most of these questions are to meet the requirements of legislation passed by Congress. Data on bathrooms are needed, says a bureau publication, "in federal studies of water and sewage use. They are also utilized as an indication of housing quality...
...responsible for sending out the final questionnaires is Census Bureau Director Vincent Barabba. Now on leave from his job as director of market research at Xerox Corp., he had headed the bureau from 1973 to 1976 under the Nixon and Ford Administrations, and was brought back by Carter last June. One major problem he faces is hiring enough enumerators. Though they all are supposed to report to local offices on April 18 for three days of training, last week the bureau was still about 15% short of its recruiting goal...
...number of factors seem to be impeding recruiting. The bureau has set higher standards than usual by seeking thousands of bilingual enumerators. Many married women who used to be anxious to make a few extra dollars by working in the census are no longer available; they now have full-or part-time jobs...