Census: Battleground for Money and Justice

The Census is especially important for nonprofits on the front lines of serving communities.

Suppose the U.S. Census had forgotten to include Chicago? In 2000, the U.S. Census missed three million people, the approximate population of Chicago. If we had missed three million people at random, maybe it wouldn’t have made a big difference. But most of those we missed are poor people, people of color and children. In other words: the Census missed much of the nonprofit sector’s communities.

The importance of the Census (conducted every ten years) cannot be understated, especially to nonprofits on the front lines of serving communities. And it’s not just the numbers: it’s getting race properly identified.

In addition to your organization’s already over-burdened work agenda, it’s hard to get excited about finding people who ought to be counted. But one Census official estimated that at least in her community, each person counted resulted in $3,900 more in federal and state funds. So getting people counted is key to making sure that your community doesn’t lose out on formula grants from state and federal government agencies.

[More on the “undercount:” How do we know how many people we didn’t count? Short answer: doing in-depth research in selected areas and then comparing that with what the Census showed for the same areas.

And actually the 2000 Census missed 6.4 million people, but doublecounted 3.1 million others, so the “net undercount” was about three million.]

Controversies about what and who to count

The first census in 1790 asked six questions, which immediately clues us in about the politics and culture of gathering information: the name of the head of household, and the numbers of free white males 16 and older, free white males under 16, free white females, all other free persons (by sex and color), and slaves — slaves being counted as 3/5 of a person each. Native Americans were not counted at all.

But despite this early emphasis on race and gender, today some members of Congress and anti-immigrant advocacy organizations would rather not count some population groups at all. Last fall Utah Senator Robert Bennett introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate (Congresswoman Virginia Foxx introduced a companion bill in the House) to stop counting non-citizens when apportioning Representatives in the Congress.

A proposed checkbox on the Census form would presumably allow you to voluntarily identify yourself as a non-citizen. The purpose was clear: to suppress counting immigrants. Fortunately this proposal was rejected on a strict party line vote (Republicans pro, Democrats anti).

Much of the drive for an anti-immigrant approach to the Census has come from the right, with groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies, NumbersUSA, and the Minutemen. Conversely, some progressive Latino activists have called for immigrants to boycott the Census in an (to us mistaken) effort to “force” Congress to pass immigration reform.

In fact, Latinos and Hispanics are among those least likely to be correctly counted due to the byzantine method for identifying race in the Census.

“Dirty tricks” on the Census

As much as anti-immigrant groups may be scaring people away from Census forms, it’s also true that this is the first Census in decades conducted under a Democratic president — and an African-American at that. Early on, Obama attempted to move the Census out of the Commerce Department but ultimately had to retreat.

But the battle continued. The President nominated a Census Bureau chief who recognized the possibility of using statistical sampling methods to get a full count of people who might otherwise be undercounted. To scientists and the left, sampling is a modern way to supplement counting. To the right, sampling is a nefarious political plot.

As a Bush-era Census director told the Wall Street Journal, (left-wing) politicians were likely to deploy sampling-generated population numbers for “fuzzier and fuzzier” uses, like redrawing the boundaries of Congressional districts.

But the conservative opposition isn’t limiting itself to arguing about technical questions. For example, the Republican National Committee mailed out an official looking questionnaire labeled “2010 Congressional District Census,” replete with a “census tracking code” and a “Do Not Destroy, Official Document” warning.

This and other “faux census” mailings mislead and confuse people, and scare others into believing it’s dangerous to complete the real forms.

Nonprofits make government work… again

On the other hand, what can a nonprofit do besides volunteering precious hours and attention to support the work of a large federal agency? Here’s our take on what community nonprofits should be doing related to the Census:

1. Use our community connections and trust to make sure our constituents get counted.

Nonprofit community organizations not only know their communities, they are trusted by the people in those communities. As the head of the Census Bureau discovered in Texas, residents were not going to open their doors to him unless he was accompanied by people they trusted and even then, the presence of sheriff’s department personnel scared some people.

Some organizations, notably the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, are organizing through affiliates around the nation to reach out to ethnic, racial, and immigrant populations that could be undercounted or dissuaded from Census participation.

Human services organizations and community organizers can link up in common cause. Example: some San Francisco Chinese nonprofits are holding “Bring in your Census form” days when people can bring their forms to trusted, Chinese-speaking nonprofits for assistance in completing them.

We can re-deploy the army of young people who gather signatures on petitions to work on publicizing the value of the Census in the first week of April.

2. Make the Census a part of the our core communications.

Make the Census a part of the our core communications from now through the end of the summer-when the Census “enumerators” will be finishing their visits to Census non-filers.

Let’s focus on the two fundamental reasons behind our support for an accurate Census: Congressional representation that reflects our populations and federal funding for our programs.

In addition to Congressional representation, the Census count is a major factor in the subsequent decade’s allocation of funds in the nation’s 10 largest federal assistance programs, according to a recent study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. PriceWaterhouse told Congress that the 2000 Census undercount cost “the 58 largest counties adversely affected by the undercount” a total of $3.6 billion in federal funding between 2000 and 2012.

Remember, while population estimates can be challenged, the final Census count cannot be.

How does the Census become part of a community-based nonprofit’s message? By inserting bits of census information everywhere: brief statements of why the Census is important, dates when the questionnaire will be mailed, dates when enumerators will be knocking on doors, and so forth.

3. Help people navigate the race and ethnicity questions.

Questions 8 and 9 in the 10-question Census questionnaire ask respondents to identify their race or, in the case of Latinos, ethnicity. These are the statistics that the government will use to enforce civil rights laws such as the Voting Rights Act and fair housing and community reinvestment statutes. If people are scared off from being counted, the resulting undercount will only weaken anti-discrimination enforcement.

Here’s where nonprofits can provide specific person-to-person help. Respondents may not realize that they can pick and choose among the printed categories or insert their own. Helping people complete race and ethnicity information correctly could be hugely important.

Guiding people to fill in the information without fear of government authorities banging down the door may be even more significant among hard-to-reach population groups.

4. If our mission is helping people, then our mission includes getting those the funding and representation they deserve… by getting them counted in the Census.

Why aren’t we up in arms over potential lost dollars and vanishing Congressional seats? Why haven’t we flooded our neighborhoods with legions of staff and volunteers knocking on doors to offer personal assistance? Tim Delaney of the National Council of Nonprofits cites three reasons: “The brutal economy has put many nonprofits on the ropes just trying to survive.

The Census is six weeks away. And getting involved to promote and conduct the United States Census is not in the mission statement of most nonprofits.” But he also continues: “Despite these concerns, many nonprofits are proudly rolling up their sleeves to help their communities with the Census.”

Getting $3,900 per person into your county may not be in your mission statement, but if your organization could do that for 100 people who are likely not to be counted, wouldn’t you do so? Engaging in work to make the Census accurate and reflective of our communities ought to be in our DNA.

Not only can we contribute to making the count accurate, we might even help save the Census from itself. Budgeted at $15 billion, the 2010 Census is running into a bevy of cost and management issues, such as the staffing and software problems reported in a Commerce Department Inspector General’s report released on February 16th.

Nonprofits have long been accustomed to making government programs work. In 2010, we have to step up to the plate again to make the Census work as it was intended.

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