ai Zimin, Itogi, Russia. It’s my first American Census, but I’ve never known that you start so early the preparation work. MR. WEINBERG:
So could you please give us the sense, what are you doing so early?MR. WEINBERG:
On the planning. MR. WEINBERG:
Yes. Well, for example, we’re not using the internet at all for this census in terms of collecting data. We are using it in terms of publicity, but not for collecting data. We know that in 10 years, the internet will be an even bigger part of people’s lives than it is now, so we are planning tests of how to use the internet to collect data for the census.
Another example is automation. We attempted to automate most of the field operations for this census, and we weren’t successful. We did automate our – what I called our address canvassing. That was the updating of the address frame, using hand-held computers. But we weren’t successful in using that for non-response follow-up. And we know that we need to – since we weren’t successful, we know we need to continue to work in that area.
And the cost growth of the Census has been pretty substantial. And we want to look at as many methods as possible that will keep the costs down. For example, instead of sending out 140,000 people into 2019, and that cost – in 2009, that cost about $450 million, that one operation. Let’s see if we can spread that work over the decade, keep the address list continually updated, and only targeted areas would get that sort of last-minute – high-growth areas would get that last minute updating in 2019 if we keep the address list current. And in that one, we’ve proposed to the Congress – it’s in the President’s proposed fiscal 2011 budget that we be allowed to do that continual updating. And we’ll see if the Congress approves for our – when they consider our budget later this year.
So it’s that sort of thing we’re looking at. It’s clearly a fairly low level, but there are research questions that can contribute to this cost saving in 2020 that we need to start now.
Sure. Go ahead. QUESTION:
My name is Dagmar Benesova, World Business Press Online. I’m from Slovakia. My question is : You mentioned that this year there will be just 10 questions in the form and that it will be the shortest form since 1976, so – MR. WEINBERG:
Oh, 1790. Thank you. So my question is the reason why there will be just 10 questions is because of the money, because of the economic crisis or because – less questions, less paper, less people to (inaudible), or because you want to address more people? It will be easier for them to answer the questions? And one more question is: You mentioned that this year, you are mailing the forms to the Americans, to the households, and in the previous years you used to visit the households. It is also the reason that you want to save money, or why? MR. WEINBERG:
All right. Two separate questions. QUESTION:
Yes, thank you. MR. WEINBERG:
We found in 2000 that when we sent out both the short form and a long form, the long form went to about one in six households. We got a much higher mail return rate from the people who got the short form than from the people who got the long form. So we figured it would be easier for people to send back just a short form, and it would be cheaper. We would save money in the long run of focusing on just the short form and letting the American Community Survey do the long form. So it was mainly for cost reasons that we went to a short form, because we now have this other mechanism for getting the long form information.
Now as far as the mail out/mail back strategy, we have used this for many decades. We actually started testing it in 1950 Census and continued testing it in ’60, and used it for a great part of the population in ’70, and it was really our main way to do the census starting in 1980. It’s now reached – we use the mail method for basically 99 percent of the population now, but we can see the writing on the wall that people, especially the younger age groups, would prefer to be able to fill this out on the internet or on a smart phone, or who knows what else