Census 2010

The census always creates controversy and the topics seem to never change. I came across this article Census 2010 can Count on Controversy and Audrey Singer made her point very clear. The article goes through what the census does and what it is actually used for. Then she goes into detail about who will and will not fill out the census. She makes a point about how the census is not kind to people with hardships or students.

The census says to count those living and sleeping in the house-hold "most of the time." So in my case, I would not be counted on my parents census because I am away at college. Home changes for a lot of people so this was not clear to me or Singer. What if my aunt stayed at my house "most of the time," do you count her? The census leaves lots of room to count people more than once and this is a problem that happens every year. The one question I had was, what about immigrants that are not authorized to live here? Should they be counted in our census or not? This is something I don't know the answer to but it makes me wonder how this is handled. The new issue for this census that Singer brought up is misplaced Katrina victims. Most of them have not returned for more than 5 years so then they can not claim that place of residence any more. The term 'home' is used too loosely and it can be twisted as to what you think home is. What about a person in prison? If they have been there a year or more, then that is their "home." They are not counted in their former residence but some family members still count them. This article really got me thinking about how accurate the census actually is. Filling out the census is the law, but making the census unclear is just asking for trouble.

After reading this article I saw the new Census 2010 commercial on t.v. It was funny and I thought it made the census look like a joke. I was unable to find the link for that commercial but here is the video from 1990....