10:00 A.M. ESTMODERATOR:
Welcome to the Foreign Press Center. Today we have with us Daniel Weinberg, who is Assistant Director for the Decennial Census program at the U.S. Census Bureau. And he’ll tell you everything about this 2010 Census.MR. WEINBERG:
Probably more than you want to know, also. (Laughter.) Well, I’ll start with the reason we do a census. This is in the U.S. Constitution. The Founding Fathers wrote this. The Constitution – let me give you a quote from the Constitution: The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the meeting of the Congress of the United States and within every term of 10 years in such manner as they by – they shall by law thereat.
So why do they do that? Why did they have a census every 10 years? There’s another part. The representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state. So basically the key reason we do a census is to ensure that every community gets its fair share of political representation through congressional apportionment, in particular.
Basically, every state is entitled to one representative in our House of Representatives, but that accounts for only the first 50 representatives, and we have 435. The others are given to each state – apportioned is the word we use – on the basis of the population, and there’s a particular formula that’s been fought over many times over the past 200 years, but there is one in law that is used.
So the second reason is to draw the districts so that they’re of equal size, and that was a law that came – I’m sorry, that was a Supreme Court decision in 1964 that said that every district had to be the same size, so that all congressional districts are drawn so they have the same number of people based on the census, and that’s actually carried down to many other layers of the U.S. So the states will redraw their legislative districts for their assemblies and senate, their legislatures, so that they have districts of the same size. And then the local jurisdictions, whether, say a city, would redraw their districts so they’re the same size.
I live in Fairfax County, which has over a million people, and after every census they redraw their supervisory districts, is what they call them, so they’re all the same – have the same number of people.
Now, this census population data, as well as other census data, are also used to distribute federal funds. As a matter of fact, over $400 billion a year is distributed on the basis of census data and also other data that we collect, so that is a key use. And that gives each locality an incentive to make sure all this – all their residents are counted, because the more they have, the more money they will get. So that we get a lot of cooperation from the localities because of that incentive that’s built into the – in effect, built into the census.
Now, this is – because it’s in the Constitution, the Congress did make the census mandatory. Everybody in the United States, including yourselves, even if you’re from a foreign country if you live here, usually live or stay here, you are required to fill out the census form. We actually do make an exception for ambassadors who live in the foreign territory of the embassy. They – it’s optional for them because that’s actually not United States land. But everybody else who lives or stays here most of the time is required to fill out the census.
Now, we – because everybody’s required, and there is some personal information – it’s not a very complicated questionnaire. It’s only 10 questions. But we do have age, sex, race, date of birth, that sort of thing, name. We do go to very extreme lengths to maintain the confidentiality of these data. They’re only collected for statistical purposes. Every person who works with the Census Bureau who sees the data, including the enumerators who are out there, temporary employees, are sworn for life to protect the confidentiality of these data. And they could be subject to a fine of up to $250,000, U.S. dollars, if they violat