2000 Census

WASHINGTON -- Facing soaring costs and evidence that the 1990 census was in some ways the least accurate in decades, the Census Bureau is planning wholesale changes in how it will collect data in the year 2000 and beyond.One change that is expected to be adopted, census officials say, is the use of sophisticated estimates based on surveys to supplement the actual counting -- a volatile issue that was the center of a partisan battle in the last census.The bureau is also considering scrapping the long-form survey that has been used once a decade to gather information as varied as household incomes and how many telephones a particular residence has.In its place, the bureau plans extensive monthly surveys conducted over an entire decade, providing a more timely flow of data.

The census can be a hard sell in some Hispanic communities. Fears that the information illegal immigrants give to the census could lead to their deportation is partly responsible for Latinos being undercounted in the 2000 census by an estimated 3 percent. This year, a prominent Latino evangelical preacher with a radio show in 11 markets is encouraging undocumented immigrants to boycott the census to protest the lack of immigration reform. And a Mexican-American political organization has called for all Hispanics to boycott it. Against that backdrop, a coalition of prominent Latinos launched a nationwide campaign Thursday urging people to fill out the 2010 census forms.

The following editorial appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on Wednesday:Monday's decision by a federal court, the recalcitrance of Republicans in Congress and the fast-approaching deadline make it ever less likely that the national census in 2000 will employ statistical sampling to correct for people not counted directly.Maybe a second demonstrably inaccurate census will change minds in time for 2010.In 1990, the head-count census missed about 8 million people, mostly blacks and Hispanics, and counted 4 million people twice.

Baltimore County's population has been increasing since the 2000 census, illustrating a trend that most U.S. cities are experiencing: the continuing urban exodus to the suburbs. The U.S. Census Bureau's Population Division estimated a drop of about 7,800 in city residents for the 12 months from July 2002 through June 2003. The 2004 report, Annual Estimate of the Population for Counties of Maryland, shows the population of Baltimore County as 780,821. That's 1,305 people per square mile, said the Census Bureau.

In a cavernous new $7 million warehouse in Rosedale, federal contractors are unloading boxes and lining up computers, preparing for an onslaught of more than 35 million U.S. Census forms that will arrive next spring when America pauses for its decennial portrait.Local planners -- with billions of dollars of federal funding and the division of electoral power at stake -- are updating mailing lists and forming publicity teams, hoping that every Marylander gets in the picture."It's an uphill battle," said Gloria Griffin, census coordinator in the Baltimore Department of Planning.

PERHAPS IT WOULD be a good thing, as Justice Antonin Scalia suggested, to let Congress and the White House "duke it out" over the 2000 Census.The politicians may end up doing that. Now, though, the matter is before the Supreme Court, and the justices should deal with it squarely.Pertinent questions were raised at a hearing this week. Do the House of Representatives and others have legal standing to file suit? Should the justices act as referee between Congress and the White House?Good questions, but the only one legally before the court is whether statistical sampling should be allowed for congressional apportionment.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Census Bureau, under fire from Congress for the high cost and inaccuracy of the 1990 count, is contemplating some radical changes in the next tabulation.The planning is spurred by lawmakers' threats to reduce the census in the year 2000 to a simple population count, eliminating the data on housing, education, transportation and employment that has been used extensively by city planners, telemarketers, academics and others.In the past, such information has been collected from one of every six households on a census "long form."

The Bureau of the Census is testing prospective census takers, crew leaders and office clerks for the 2000 Census. The tests are given weekdays and some Saturdays around the county. The bureau needs temporary staff to make sure everyone is counted in the 2000 Census in Carroll County. Census workers work in their community, set their hours and can be reimbursed for authorized expenses. All positions are paid competitive wages. Appointments are recommended, but walk-ins are welcome. Bring two forms of identification.

The U.S. Census Bureau wants to hire 500 workers in Anne Arundel County to check street address lists for the 2000 census. These temporary workers will travel through each block in their community to verify and update lists of addresses the Census Bureau has compiled.The workers also will look for housing units that may not be readily visible, to assure that they receive census questionnaires meant for everyone."Our goal is to have a pool of local people who want to work on this activity and who are committed to a successful count in their neighborhood," said Philadelphia Regional Census Director Fernando E. Armstrong.

More than 11,000 Maryland households were headed by same-sex couples last year, according to new data released today from the 2000 census. The count of same-sex "unmarried partners" constitutes barely a half-percent of the state's nearly 2 million households. Members of the gay and lesbian community believe the figure falls well short of a true count of their numbers. But it also represents the Census Bureau's first deliberate effort to recognize and include long-term gay and lesbian relationships in its decennial portrait of American households.

The U.S. Census Bureau has revised upward by nearly 15,000 its most recent estimate of Baltimore's population - a change that indicates the city's loss of residents has dropped to its slowest pace in decades and that the city could be poised to reverse a half-century of population decline. The revised census figures - coming in response to a challenge by Baltimore officials - put the city's population as of July 1, 2003, at 643,304, compared with the original estimate of 628,670 released in April.

The line separating Baltimore and Washington is drawn through Howard County. Thirty percent of county residents commuted to jobs elsewhere in the Baltimore region in 2000, according to the numbers released today, and 30 percent commuted to jobs around the nation's capital. That is about 40,000 people commuting to each metropolitan area. The percentage breakdown has changed only slightly since 1990, despite job growth and a population boom in the county since then. In a place squeezed between two job magnets - defining Howard in ways from traffic to salaries to the football team people root for - the pull of each is holding steady.

The 2000 Census missed more than 73,000 Marylanders, including almost 17,000 people in Prince George's County and more than 11,000 in Baltimore, according to adjusted population figures reluctantly released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The numbers suggest that the decennial count, on which much government funding is based, overlooked more than 1.1 million children nationwide - half of them black or Hispanic. The data were part of a nationwide set of adjusted population estimates, released under a federal court order, that indicated more than 3.2 million Americans - about 1.2 percent of the population - were missed by the census takers almost three years ago. The Census Bureau disowned the data yesterday.

NEW YORK - The city with the largest American Indian population, according to the 2000 Census, is not Phoenix. Not Los Angeles. It is New York City. The news is a surprise even to some Indians living in the city. "You're kidding, right?" said Rosemary Richmond, the director of the American Indian Community House in Manhattan. The census counted 41,289 American Indians and Alaska natives living in the city in 2000. And although the Census Bureau's form allowed people to claim more than one race, helping increase the numbers from previous years, when the census counted those people who claimed only some American Indian or Alaska native heritage, New York City was still No. 1, with 87,241.

Fueled by nearly a decade of prosperity and low interest rates, Marylanders "upsized" their homes during the 1990s. New data released yesterday from the 2000 census show that they moved into larger houses, took out bigger mortgages and paid more every month for the privilege of living large. Bill and Mary Brown embodied that expansiveness. They bought a small, three-bedroom house in Elkridge five years ago and within a year began to add on, doubling the size of the place and adding three rooms.

More than 11,000 Maryland households were headed by same-sex couples last year, according to new data released today from the 2000 census. The count of same-sex "unmarried partners" constitutes barely a half-percent of the state's nearly 2 million households. Members of the gay and lesbian community believe the figure falls well short of a true count of their numbers. But it also represents the Census Bureau's first deliberate effort to recognize and include long-term gay and lesbian relationships in its decennial portrait of American households.

WASHINGTON -- While Republicans and Democrats in Congress continue high-stakes maneuvering over the 2000 Census, the state of Arizona has sent Washington a defiant message on what kinds of numbers will -- and won't -- be acceptable inside its borders.A new Arizona law, whipped through the Republican-controlled Legislature on a largely party-line vote and signed Thursday by GOP Gov. Jane Dee Hull, would require the state to use only population figures from a straight head count as it remaps legislative and congressional districts.

WHILE THE 2000 census has focused attention on Baltimore's sharp decline in population in the 1990s, another telling statistic speaks to the city's distress over the last decade: 42,481 vacant housing units. That equals 14.1 percent of the city's 300,477 units -- or one in every seven homes or apartments. In 1990, the number of vacant housing units was 27,222, or 9 percent of a slightly greater housing stock of 303,706 units. Census figures on homeownership in the city are more of a mixed bag. The number of owner-occupied units declined by nearly 5,000 in the last decade -- from 134,424 to 129,869.

The number of American women who are raising children without a husband present grew by more than 25 percent during the 1990s, according to data released today from the 2000 census. The census in April counted nearly 7.6 million households headed by women with children younger than 18 at home, but no husband. There were just over 6 million in 1990. The 10-year rate of increase was nearly twice the 13 percent growth of the U.S. population as a whole. "That is definitely a huge trend, and it is worldwide," said sociologist Steven P. Martin of the University of Maryland, College Park.