<DOC>
[106th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:66280.wais]
OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS: EXAMINING THE STATUS OF KEY CENSUS 2000
OPERATIONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CENSUS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 8, 2000
__________
Serial No. 106-139
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
66-280 CC WASHINGTON : 2000
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California ------
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian
Lisa Smith Arafune, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on the Census
DAN MILLER, Florida, Chairman
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
------ ------
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Thomas B. Hofeller, Staff Director
Lara Chamberlain, Professional Staff Member
Esther Skelley, Professional Staff Member
David McMillen, Minority Professional Staff Member
Mark Stephenson, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on February 8, 2000................................. 1
Statement of:
Prewitt, Kenneth, Director, Bureau of Census, accompanied by
Mr. Waite, Mr. Raines, Ms. Marks, and Ms. Dukes............ 16
Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by:
Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Illinois, prepared statement of................... 13
Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York, prepared statement of............... 9
Miller, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Florida, prepared statement of.......................... 4
Prewitt, Kenneth, Director, Bureau of Census:
Prepared statement of.................................... 21
Samples of mailers....................................... 42
Ryan, Hon. Paul, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Wisconsin, article dated January 4, 2000................ 72
OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS: EXAMINING THE STATUS OF KEY CENSUS 2000
OPERATIONS
----------
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2000
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Census,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Miller
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Ryan, Maloney, and Davis.
Staff present: Jennifer M. Safavian, chief counsel; Timothy
J. Maney, chief investigator; David Flaherty, senior data
analyst; Chip Walker, communications director; Erin Yeatman,
press secretary; Lara Chamberlain and Esther Skelley,
professional staff members; Jo Powers, assistant press
secretary; Amy Althoff, clerk; Michelle Ash, minority counsel;
David McMillen and Mark Stephenson, minority professional staff
members; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.
Mr. Miller. Good morning. A quorum being present, the
subcommittee will come to order.
We will begin with an opening statement by myself and the
ranking member, and will proceed then to Director Prewitt.
For almost 2 years, this subcommittee has been actively
involved in the oversight of the 2000 census. This subcommittee
has held hearings on a wide range of subjects, such as minority
outreach, local census data, and census addresses.
Ranking Member Mrs. Maloney and I have held field hearings
in Miami, Phoenix, and Racine, WI. We have visited inner city
schools and Indian reservations. We have been to numerous
schools and visited with children to talk about the importance
of being counted in the upcoming census.
This Congress has followed through in its commitment to
give the Census Bureau the resources it requested to conduct a
full and accurate census. In fact, the $1.7 billion additional
funding requested for fiscal year 2000 was approved this past
fall.
Today, we are here and the census has, at long last, begun.
Today's hearings will be one in a series to be held during the
upcoming months where Congress will have the opportunity to get
regular updates from the Bureau on the status of the 2000
census. Where are things going well? Where are problems? And
what can Congress do to help?
Once again, this committee has before it Census Bureau
Director, Dr. Kenneth Prewitt. In December, Dr. Prewitt was
kind enough to come to my District and join me in census
outreach efforts. It was an excellent visit. We spent time in a
local high school, spoke to an assembly full of grade
schoolers, and met with local community leaders. As Dr. Prewitt
can attest, the interest in the census is high.
This past Sunday, there was a front page article in my
local hometown newspaper, the Bradenton Herald. The front page
says, ``Census Groups Reach Out to Area Minorities,'' which is
exactly the job that the Census Bureau should be doing, and it
talks about a Complete Count Committee meeting at Holy Cross
Catholic Church in Palmetto, where the Complete Count Committee
and Census people were involved in reaching out to the Hispanic
community, and they said approximately 70 people, mostly
Hispanics, were in attendance.
The Reverend Necantor Labato, who is a priest at Holy Cross
Catholic Church, where they have 1,000 Hispanics, a total of
4,300 parishioners, said--let me just quote a couple things--
``Don't be afraid to answer. Don't be afraid to get involved.
Those without immigration papers, they are afraid, and I think
they are wrong to be afraid, but the reality is they are.''
Labato said Census officials convinced him that Federal
Immigration officials, taxing authorities, and other Government
agencies have no access to personal census data.
To quote the priest, ``If I knew or even was suspicious
that it would be bad for you Hispanic people, I would not be
involved and would not allow them to use the parish hall.''
That's exactly the type effort we need to reach out to the
under-counted populations.
They have, I see, a fair coming up on February 19th at a
title one school, Tillman Elementary School. They're going to
be at Wal-Mart Supercenter, where the van is going to be
showing up on February 27th, at another community fair on March
18th. This is only 1 of 550 census offices, but it is nice to
see that we are making front page of the paper, getting the
word out, and that local offices are working.
Dr. Prewitt last month traveled to Alaska to officially
enumerate the first person in the 2000 census. Arriving in the
Bering Sea fishing village of Unalakleet via dog sled, a
photograph that will go down in history, Director Prewitt
counted 82-year-old Stanton Katchatag and his wife in their
one-story cedar frame house.
Not only do the Native people of Alaska represent a
difficult population to count because of the extreme weather
and remote locations, Alaska, in 1990, had the Nation's lowest
mail response rate of 52 percent.
Of course, we are hopeful that the $102 million ad campaign
will help the response rates rise. I'm sure virtually everyone
in this room has seen or heard at least one census ad. Many of
us saw the ad that aired during the Super Bowl. I also
understand that there is an upcoming shift in the focus of the
ad campaign, and hope to hear more about it.
Local outreach efforts, combined with the 90 Plus Five
campaign, where local governments are being asked to increase
their 1990 mail response rates by 5 percent, leave us hopeful
that we can break the downward spiral of mail response rates
that we have been experiencing for the past three decades.
I know that the announcement letters went out last month.
How is that program being received by the 39,000 governments
nationwide?
Another great task is the massive employment effort that is
currently underway. Hundreds of thousands of enumerators must
be hired and trained from an applicant pool of some 3 million
people. I recently read a news account that on the Navajo
Reservation near Window Rock, Arizona, the Bureau is having
trouble filling the nearly 1,500 census jobs, despite high
unemployment and a $10 hourly wage.
There are reports out of Tahlequah, OK, that the 14-county
region of the Cherokee Nation has only received half of the
applications needed.
Also disturbing was a comment by the Cherokee chief, Chad
Smith, who said that some tribal members see no reason to
cooperate with the U.S. Government. The largest percentage
undercount in 1990 was among the Native American population,
and nowhere is trust more of an issue than on reservations. I
am very interested in how the Bureau is working to overcome
these issues.
I have also read reports that there are employment problems
in Kentucky, where nearly half the counties don't have enough
enumerators. Many of these areas are rural or non-city-style
addresses, and thus are subject to either update leave or list
enumerate procedures. Are these rural area problems nationwide
or just in isolated pockets? And what is the Bureau doing to
alleviate them?
Much of the success of this census hinges on the mail
response rate. It is, of course, necessary to prepare a worst-
case scenario. What if the anticipated mail response rate is
not 61 percent but lower? It will not be sufficient for the
Bureau to come before Congress and simply ask for more money.
The Members of this body--and rightfully so--will want to know
exactly how the money is to be spent, as well as what went
wrong with the original plan.
I hope today that Director Prewitt can shed some light on
what contingency plans the Bureau has and give us a sense of
where we stand just 7 weeks from census day.
As you are aware, Director Prewitt, in your invitation
letter you were asked to be prepared to comment on other areas,
including: Providing an overview of where we are in the
Bureau's operational time line, as well as what key activities
and dates lay ahead. What is the status of the Bureau's address
listing program and new construction listing program?
How is the data capture system--which retrieves information
from millions of census forms--holding up under testing? How is
the staffing and operation of the local census offices
proceeding?
I look forward to your testimony, Dr. Prewitt, and thank
you for appearing in the subcommittee.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Miller follows:]
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Mr. Miller. Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Dr. Prewitt. I compliment you on your dedication
and commitment, going all the way to Alaska via dog sled to
remote areas. I think that is a great testimony of your
commitment to making sure that we contact as many people as
possible.
I'm glad that we are having this hearing today, and I
really want to thank the chairman for agreeing to my request to
have it. It is important that, as the Census Bureau begins
reviewing for full-scale operations, Congress and the American
public stay informed on the progress of the largest peacetime
mobilization ever, the U.S. Census civic ceremony.
From reading your testimony, Dr. Prewitt, it appears that
the 2000 census operations are on schedule and on budget.
Things seem to be going according to plan. Recruiting is on
track, if not ahead of schedule; 520 local census offices are
open and operational. There should be one in each Congressional
District. The paid advertising campaign is moving smoothly into
its most active phase. And the address list is nearly complete.
I must say I was thrilled, as the chairman mentioned, when
we saw the ad on the Super Bowl, and I had received from Dr.
Prewitt's office a huge book that has a listing of when the
advertisements are going to be on the air so that Members of
Congress can let their constituents know, let the groups that
are working with them know, so that they can be watching and
getting the word out.
Considering the voices of gloom and doom that were
prevalent a year ago, I think we can all take pride in the
excellent work of the career professionals at the Census
Bureau.
Thank you very much.
Additionally, we in Congress should be pleased that we were
able to produce, in the best bipartisan manner, $4.5 billion
the Bureau told us that they needed, amidst a tremendously
complicated budget scenario.
In spite of all the good tidings for the census, there is
nothing we or the Census Bureau can do to prevent complications
that probably will arise. Of course, there are going to be
problems. You cannot conduct an operation of this scale without
some problems. Hiring over half of a million people, training
these half of a million people, and sending them out into the
field is a daunting task.
I know today we will hear from Director Prewitt that the
hiring process is on track, but what if, for example, the mail-
back response rate is less than we expect? Or what if, the
economy doing so well, the Bureau cannot find enough workers to
conduct the census?
Let me be clear. I do not think these things will happen. I
believe that this census will be one of the best in our
Nation's history. Do you hear that, Dr. Prewitt? And I am
confident that the extensive planning the Census Bureau has
done over the last decade will pay off. But that does not mean
that we should not prepare for all contingencies, as the GAO
has suggested.
I have introduced legislation, H.R. 3581, to create a
contingency fund for the 2000 census. If there are problems
with the mail response rate or with the hiring program, funds
need to be available to respond to glitches fast so that the
larger job can be done on time.
Following on recommendations from the GAO report, my bill
would also expand the labor pool for specific groups of people,
including active duty military personnel and individuals who
have received buy-outs from the Federal Government.
Last, it would allow recipients of Federal assistance to
work for the census without a loss of benefits. This is a great
idea, one that was originally included in a bill that my friend
and colleague, Carrie Meek, introduced. This bill has been
reported out of the Government Reform Committee with the
chairman's support.
These are common-sense preventatives to ensure a good
census.
As I've said, Mr. Chairman, I am happy to learn that every
time table and task for the 2000 census is currently on track.
I look forward to hearing the details of the many census
operations from our esteemed witness, the Honorable Kenneth
Prewitt.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney
follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6280.005
Mr. Miller. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I'll make a few
comments.
Given the fact that this is the beginning of the new
millennium and it is also the first time that we've come
together, I simply want to indicate how much pleasure I got
from working with both you and the ranking member in the old
millennium planning what we're going to do in this one.
Mr. Chairman, let me commend you for calling this hearing
to examine the status of operations for the 2000 census.
Likewise, I'd also like to thank Dr. Prewitt and the Census
Bureau for his not only being here today, but for the
tremendous work that they've done getting us to this point.
As we rapidly prepare for the 2000 census, the largest
peacetime mobilization, it is important that we continue to
examine the status of key operations.
In addition to examining the status of these operations, it
is also important that community leaders at every level get
fully involved.
I'm pleased to note that my own Full Count Committee in
Chicago has been actively engaged in raising the awareness of
the importance of participation in the 2000 census.
Also, last week I joined with Mayor Daley and other
community leaders in my District to underscore how critical the
census is in determining services, programs, and
representation. That particular community was seriously
undercounted in the 1990 census.
Our charge, with our increased technology and understanding
of the past, is to ensure that we get better and better and
better at conducting this important activity.
The Census Bureau's commitment to the $102 million paid
advertising campaign is, in fact, working, and is serving to
heighten awareness of the 2000 census. There were, of course,
the advertisements that all of you who watched the Super Bowl
saw and on radio, ads in magazines and newspapers, and I've
seen the ads on billboards.
This commitment to advertisement in rural and urban
communities could serve the goal of greater participation of
the 2000 census. Ultimately, greater participation will require
the trust of the people to return those forms and to answer the
call of census enumerators.
I also would like to take this opportunity to commend my
city, the city of Chicago, for the tremendous effort that has
been put forth by city government to raise awareness and the
comprehensive program that has been put together under the
leadership of Mayor Daley.
I also want to commend the Chicago media, both its print
and electronic. I've seen editorials in the ``Chicago Sun
Times,'' in the ``Chicago Tribune,'' in the ``Chicago Daily
Defender'' alerting people to the fact that there is nothing to
fear, and that, in all likelihood, Franklin Delano Roosevelt
could be quoted when he said that the only thing that they have
to fear would, in fact, be fear, itself, but that this data,
this information cannot be used, will not be used, has not been
used for any purpose other than to count the people.
I look forward to the testimony of Dr. Prewitt, and
certainly know that he is going to shed some additional light
on those challenges which are ahead.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and yield back the rest of the
time.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Danny K. Davis follows:]
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Mr. Miller. Dr. Prewitt. With you is Mr. Waite, Mr. Raines,
Ms. Marks, and Ms. Dukes. Why don't you all come forward and be
sworn, just in case your testimony is needed.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Miller. Director Prewitt, your opening statement, sir.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH PREWITT, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF CENSUS,
ACCOMPANIED BY MR. WAITE, MR. RAINES, MS. MARKS, AND MS. DUKES
Dr. Prewitt. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mrs.
Maloney, Mr. Davis. I do want to begin by thanking you for your
leadership in establishing the bipartisan congressional support
for this census effort. The partnership with Congress has taken
off in quite impressive ways, and that partnership does send a
strong message across America that all of us have to be united
in the goal of achieving a complete and accurate census.
The congressional partnership is launched. Members of
Congress have really taken on the challenge promoting the
census--local town hall meetings, public service announcements,
local census grand openings, publicizing census jobs, and,
obviously, rather heavy use of your own congressional
newsletters.
What I will do in these oral remarks is to quickly, and
therefore necessarily superficially, offer a broad overview of
current progress. My written testimony attempts to cover
specific issues raised in your invitation letter in more depth.
The major message is that census 2000 is on track, is on
schedule. Were this not so, I would be bringing it to your
attention. There is no doubt in my mind that we will need the
full support of Congress, particularly of this committee, were
we to foresee or encounter any major threats to successful
census.
Since I reported to you last fall, the actual enumeration
for census 2000 has begun. We have produced a master address
file containing approximately 120 million addresses, have
printed the questionnaires that will go to each of these
addresses, have opened up all 520 local census offices, are
intensely promoting the census, and actively seeking to hire
the army of workers we will need to do the job.
As we speak, census takers are systematically canvasing the
remote areas of Alaska to complete a questionnaire for each
housing unit and its inhabitants. And, as was referenced, I did
have the honor of conducting the first enumeration in
Unalakleet, AK, a village on the Bering Sea about 400 miles
northwest of Anchorage.
I do want to put into the record that I was under the
supervision of a team leader, because I was considered a
trainee, and I would tell you that I was quite moved. After I
finished that first enumeration, the first one in the Nation,
first one in the millennium, if you will, I had a lump in my
throat and I felt very proud to have initiated what we know
will be a very major, successful census. Indeed, if the warm
welcome that we received in Unalakleet, including whale
blubber, for which some of us did acquire a taste--it is an
acquired taste--if that warm welcome can be replicated
throughout this country, we will, indeed, have a successful
census.
What Unalakleet means is, ``The wind that blows to the
east.'' What we tried to signal with that successful
enumeration--we've now counted 100 percent of that village--is
to try to send a signal across the country that if we can do
100 percent in a remote village on the edge of the Bering Sea,
we should be able to do 100 percent in the rest of the country.
Why are we already counting the people in remote Alaska?
Because travel is easier now than it will be when the spring
thaws make the villages inaccessible, and many Alaska Natives
who congregate in their villages in winter will have dispersed
to fish and hunt.
This is just one of the many examples where the Census
Bureau has crafted procedures to meet very specific enumeration
challenges.
The next big field operation begins March 3rd. Census
enumerators will deliver questionnaires to some 20 million
housing units in the update/leave areas of the country. These
areas are those with different address types, mostly in small
towns and rural areas where the address systems have less
geographic structure.
Census enumerators, in addition to leaving a questionnaire
at each house, will also check for any missing addresses. This
is what we mean by the ``update'' part. We update our address
file.
And, of course, householders are expected to mail back the
form in the postage paid envelope.
Then, beginning March 13th continuing through March 15th,
U.S. Postal Service will deliver questionnaires to some 98
million addresses in the mail out and mail back areas of the
country. These are areas where the housing units have city-
style addresses, such a 101 Main Street.
These addresses are mostly in major urban centers, but also
in many small-and mid-sized towns and some rural areas. As in
update/leave areas, householders are expected to return the
mail.
Also, beginning March 13th and continuing through March and
April, census enumerators will visit slightly less than a
million housing units in list enumerate areas, similar to
remote Alaska but where an early start was not dictated by
special conditions. These are remote rural areas or areas of
significant seasonal resident populations where it is not
efficient to compile a pre-census address list. At the time
census enumerators visit these housing units, they will also
list the unit and complete the questionnaire; thus, there is no
separate non-response followup for these areas because, indeed,
we will have their information.
Obviously, for housing units not returning the census form,
currently estimated at approximately 46 million, we will send
enumerators in the non-response followup operation. This
operation is scheduled to begin April 27 and will continue for
10 weeks until July 1st. That 10-week period is, of course, an
average. Some areas will require less time and some more.
Let me turn quickly to marketing. Through our marketing
program, we are aggressively seeking to encourage response to
the census so that we can keep the non-response workload as
small as possible. We began our paid advertising campaign last
November, placing ads to educate people about the importance
and potential benefits of the census. We have now entered the
second phase of our paid advertising campaign, designed to
motivate response with the message, ``This is your future.
Don't leave it blank.''
During the months of February and March, census 2000 will
be among the top two or three advertisers in the Nation. Ads
will appear on every television network and on cable
television, radio, magazines, newspapers, billboards, subways,
buses, and so on.
Overall, the census 2000 advertising campaign will comprise
some 250 different creative elements and more than 130,000
individual media placements.
Paid advertising is just one piece of the Census Bureau's
integrated marketing strategy for census 2000. The other pieces
include partnership; the package that includes the advance
letter, questionnaire, and thank you reminder post cards; media
relations; promotions and special events--many of which have
already been referenced in your opening comments.
Each of these pieces has its own strengths, and by working
in concert we hope we will reach and motivate everyone to
participate in the census.
Of these, partnership is perhaps the most important. We
already have some 55,000 partnership agreements and Complete
Count Committees in State, local, and tribal governments,
businesses, national, and community-based organizations.
Educators have ordered over 800,000 teaching kits for use in
our Census in Schools initiative.
Next week, 12 recreational vehicles, one in each census
region, will set out across the country to promote census 2000.
We have a very high-profile launch event planned for next
Tuesday, February 15th.
Each of these vehicles will be equipped with exhibits,
videos, printed information and other giveaways to spread the
message that census 2000 is on the way. This road tour is
designed to generate media attention in various markets, from
small towns to large cities, and enhance the efforts of our
partnership and media specialists.
Finally, as the chairman has referenced, we have launched
an initiative to encourage grassroots participation in every
town, city, county, State, and tribal area in the Nation. We
are providing the highest elected official, as well as Members
of Congress, with tool kits that include sample news releases,
articles, talking points, and other written materials; a
dedicated website to enable participants to obtain updated
information and download promotional materials; and a toll-free
number to allow elected officials to call for additional
information.
In this campaign, we are challenging communities to
increase their overall response rates in census 2000 by at
least 5 percentage points over their 1990 level. This
component, called ``90 Plus Five,'' is setting a public target
for mail-back of 70 percent nationwide. That is a 5 percent
increase from the 1990 base.
To draw maximum public attention to this effort, mail-back
response rates for each jurisdiction will be posted on the
Internet and otherwise made public and updated daily from March
27 to April 11. It will then be followed by a second component,
Because You Count, which is aimed at increasing cooperation
with census enumerators when they come knocking on doors.
We are making every effort to convert this census into a
civic event of the highest order.
We are gratified by the enthusiastic, even exuberant,
involvement in the census by so many partners and local
governments. I might note, however, that many of the
promotional events are independently planned and managed. They
are not, even indirectly, under the control of the Census
Bureau. It is likely that the exuberance at times will generate
events or materials that might receive less than positive
public response. I hope that this committee will appreciate
that not every news story or letter from a constituent about
the census will be describing something that the Census Bureau,
itself, is responsible for.
Turning quickly then to hiring--clearly, one of the key
challenges to a successful census is our ability to recruit
hundreds of thousands of short-term, part-time workers in an
exceptionally tight labor market. Hiring is progressing well,
and at this time we have no reason to believe that we will be
unable to reach our goal.
We have met hiring goals for every operation thus far, and
in early January we launched a blitz to hire 500,000 temporary
census workers to fill the 860,000 jobs we will need in 2000,
most of which will be for non-response followup.
We believe we will need to test 3 million individuals for
these jobs, about 6 per position, because of anticipated
turnover, applicants who fail background checks, and so forth.
More specifically, we want to have a qualified applicant
pool of 2.4 million individuals. Our goal, of course, is to
hire local people who are familiar with their communities.
So far, we have recruited nearly 1.2 million qualified
applicants, half of the total needed and slightly ahead of our
target for February 1st. April 19th is our target date for the
qualified applicant pool of 2.4 million.
To keep on target with recruitment goals, we are using paid
advertising on television, radio, print ads, and on buses.
We've also established a job information site on the Internet.
In one recent week, we had over 400,000 calls to our telephone
job line and nearly 700,000 hits on our Internet recruitment
site, so there is great and, we believe, growing interest in
census jobs.
We are partnering with a number of organizations to help us
achieve our goal. I will mention just two under a grant from
the Department of Labor. Goodwill Industries is working to
identify welfare-to-work participants who are qualified for
census jobs and is using its retail stores to distribute
recruiting information to individuals who are not in the
welfare-to-work program.
We are also partnering with the Corporation for National
Service, which has 30,000 partner agencies with more than
700,000 volunteers in its three programs, and they are
assisting us in our recruitment efforts.
Then, sir, I want to make quick reference to our
contractors. As part of this progress report, I want to remind
the committee that a significant percentage of our budget is
contracted out to private industry, with a paid advertising
campaign, of course, but also for data capture, telephone
assistance centers, network operations, electronic data
dissemination, and other key operations.
These technological contracts add up to approximately $1
billion. Yesterday, we convened senior officials from Lockheed
Martin, TRW, Unisys, IBM, and other contractors. Each company
reported on its progress to date. The uniform message is that
they are ready to go. More than that, these senior officials
publicly expressed their pride at being associated with census
2000 and their individual and collective commitment to work
noncompetitively in this endeavor and, in fact, to go the extra
mile.
Mr. Chairman, I conclude these opening remarks with a
pledge under oath to this committee. The Census Bureau is now
engaged in the massive, complex effort, one that the GAO has
described--and as you all have referenced--as the largest
peacetime mobilization in the Nation's history. Literally
hundreds and hundreds of individual operations are already
underway, and every Census Bureau employee responsible for some
part of census 2000 is fully engaged.
At the same time, this committee, the General Accounting
Office, the Congressional Monitoring Board, and other units of
the Government must fulfill their appropriate oversight
functions.
I very much appreciate that, in discharging this
committee's oversight responsibilities, you, Mr. Chairman, have
taken into account that the census is underway and that we are
fully engaged.
I also report to you that I met a few days ago with senior
officers of the GAO, and we jointly agreed that the principle
that should guide GAO oversight at this stage is constructive
engagement, the phrase that was introduced by Nancy Kingsbury,
Assistant Comptroller General.
I have written the co-chairs of the Congressional
Monitoring Board asking for a meeting to review how best to
ensure that its considerable oversight activities are conducted
in a manner compatible with the intense operational pressures
we now face.
My pledge to you and to other oversight agencies is that we
will bring to your attention quickly any operational crisis
that could put the census at risk. Obviously, in an effort of
this complexity and enormity, there will be dozens of small-
scale problems every day. I could give you examples of today's
issue. The ones of last week have been solved. The ones of next
week are not yet known to us.
My pledge is not to try to inform you of each and every one
of these small-scale issues, but to take seriously my
responsibility to inform you if we foresee or encounter a
problem that could put the census at risk.
As of today, the important word is that no such threat is
in view. Census 2000 is on track and on schedule.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Prewitt follows:]
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Mr. Miller. Thank you, Director Prewitt.
It is exciting to know that the first people in this
country have been counted, and the process is going to go very
quickly over these next few months.
Let me clarify a couple things on dates.
Initially, for the people that are going to be responding
by mail, a card will go in the mail to advise people a census
form is on the way, correct?
Dr. Prewitt. The first week of March. Yes, sir.
Mr. Miller. That's the first week in March. And then on the
13th or so the forms will actually go in the mail?
Dr. Prewitt. Yes. The Post Office is scheduled to mail
between March 13th and 15th.
Mr. Miller. That's a huge undertaking for the Post Office,
so you have to work closely with them to prepare for that type
of system.
And then another card, a reminder card, will go in the
mail----
Dr. Prewitt. During the last week of March.
Mr. Miller. OK. The design of these cards--somebody is
helping with that?
Dr. Prewitt. Yes, sir. They have been researched.
Mr. Miller. There's a little color to them or something?
Dr. Prewitt. Yes.
Mr. Miller. OK. Good.
Dr. Prewitt. As a matter of fact, on that particular issue,
not too much color. We want to make sure that these don't look
like junk mail.
Mr. Miller. OK.
Dr. Prewitt. And so we did subject them to a lot of testing
to try to make them look very official.
Mr. Miller. Good. That's the idea.
Now, when do you start doing the non-response followup?
When the forms come in, they go to four different distribution
centers and they're scanned. The envelopes will have a bar code
on them, correct?
Dr. Prewitt. Yes, sir.
Mr. Miller. And that's how you can very quickly tell that
day. It's automated to know the response rate.
Dr. Prewitt. When the envelopes come in, they are
immediately scanned to the address. We're not yet scanning the
questionnaire itself.
Mr. Miller. Right.
Dr. Prewitt. Only the fact that the envelope has come in,
the bar-coded envelope has come in.
Mr. Miller. And that bar-coded envelope will tell the
address of the person?
Dr. Prewitt. Yes.
Mr. Miller. OK. And that will be fed in so we will know.
Then the non-response followup will begin when? Give me the
date.
Dr. Prewitt. April 27th.
Mr. Miller. April 27th for 10 weeks, until----
Dr. Prewitt. Early July.
Mr. Miller. Early July. Now, how do you close out? Would
you explain how closeout will work on this non-response
followup? They'll go knock on the door? I mean, how does that
work?
Dr. Prewitt. Our basic rule is that we try to make six
contacts per household, three in person and three by phone. We
get the phone numbers as best we can by either using,
obviously, phone books, other systems, or by asking a neighbor
and so forth, so we do have a three visit and three phone call
limit. After that, we believe we're not likely to find the
person.
Mr. Miller. How long a period of time will that be over?
Dr. Prewitt. Well, our rules call that visits and phone
calls have to be made at different times of the day and
different days of the week, so that if you try to find the
person on a Wednesday afternoon, then you should go back the
next time on a Saturday morning, the next time on a Sunday
night, and so forth. And that will be spread across a number of
weeks. Of course, you've got an enumerator with a stack of non-
response followup households to visit, and they will be doing
these during this period of time.
They will then report back to their crew leaders, of
course, when they no longer believe that they're able to reach
one of those households.
Obviously, we're in a bind at all times in this. We're
trying to save the taxpayer money. Every time we send an
enumerator to a household we pay their transportation cost, we
pay their hourly cost, and if we have reason to believe that
after six efforts that we're not likely to get a response, then
we won't send them out an 8th, 9th, 10th time. It wouldn't be a
prudent use of our resources.
Mr. Miller. Then what? Then what, after we don't have any
response?
Dr. Prewitt. We then do have what we call ``closeout
procedures,'' or ``final attempt'' where possibly you go to
proxy interviews, which is to say we ask a neighbor, or someone
who might have reason to know who is in that housing unit? Can
you give us a rough estimate, as best you can, about the
composition of that household, and then we'll record that as a
response. It is tagged in the file as a proxy response.
Mr. Miller. Is this any different from 1990?
Dr. Prewitt. No.
Mr. Miller. The time for the six contacts--I mean, if
someone is on vacation--Easter is late this year, and people
are going on holiday vacations. It could be a week or two.
Dr. Prewitt. Right.
Mr. Miller. So there will be time to spread it out?
Dr. Prewitt. Certainly. Yes, sir. Spread across.
Mr. Miller. All right.
Dr. Prewitt. And, again, using neighbors often.
Mr. Miller. Right.
Dr. Prewitt. Saying, ``Look, we knocked on the door of
somebody down the street, and nobody seems to be home,'' and
they say, ``Well, that's because they're gone for 2 weeks.''
Then we wait 2 weeks. We tag that and we wouldn't come back for
2 weeks. So it's spread across a fairly extensive period of
time.
Mr. Miller. Could you comment some more on this contingency
plan? I know in your statement you said you'll come back to
Congress, which, of course----
Dr. Prewitt. Right.
Mr. Miller. And I know there are all kinds of
contingencies----
Dr. Prewitt. Yes.
Mr. Miller [continuing]. From the individual areas that may
have a low response rate, or nationwide. I mean, if the
response rate is 51 percent, we've got a crisis, obviously.
Dr. Prewitt. Sure.
Mr. Miller. So can you give me some more explanation what
the contingency plan is?
Dr. Prewitt. We have a large number of contingency
operations for all kinds of activities, and we can talk about
those specifically. What happens if we lose a local office?
What happens if something happens in a data capture center? We
have numerous, numerous contingencies built into all kinds of
our operations--technological backup systems, capacity to move
people quickly. If something happens to an office, we would
actually be able to reduplicate that office quickly in another
office. So we have a lot of those kind of contingency plans.
But I think you are specifically addressing, of course, the
question of the mail-back response?
Mr. Miller. Yes. Let's talk about that.
Dr. Prewitt. Could I spend a few moments explaining the 61
percent? That may help us understand the contingencies that we
have to put in place.
Mr. Miller. OK.
Dr. Prewitt. After 1990, when the initial mail-back
response rate came in at 65 percent--down 10 percent, as you
know, from the previous decade--the early work of the Census
Bureau looking at the pattern of response, responses to other
kinds of surveys, the changing demography in the country, and
so forth, led us to an estimate as low as 55 percent.
If you'd gone back to Census Bureau documents in the
immediate period after 1990, most of the conversation would
have been, ``We have got to anticipate the possibility of a
mail-back response rate as low as 55 percent in 2000.''
The Census Bureau then engaged in a number of experiments.
The experiments included what would happen if you could make
the form more user friendly.
The 1990 form is a FOSDIC-based form, which was also a
technological innovation by the Census Bureau. Fill in the
circles so it could be data scanned.
Well, when you're doing a FOSDIC form, you have to have
much more complicated instructions. So when you look at it, you
can open it up and say, ``This is just too hard. I'm just not
going to do it.'' And we don't know how many people out there
actually don't do the census form because they are intimidated
by it, but we do know that, once we designed a more user-
friendly form--and you've seen the form, of course. It's very
readable. It's simple questions. You just write it in, and so
forth. All of that, of course, was based upon the fact that we
could do optical scanning recognition. We had a higher quality
of technology to do the data scanning in 2000, so we could
design a form where, instead of putting in a four and a seven
in two little FOSDIC circles, you could simply write in ``47.''
It also made it a more attractive format.
That's one experiment.
We obviously looked into the whole issue of multiple
languages, and we did take the questionnaire up to six
languages, as you know, as we've testified before.
We also went to three mailings instead of one mailing.
Another thing we did in 2000 that we had not done in 1990,
we make it more prominent on the envelope that this is required
by law. That was another experiment.
So we did a series of experiments, and let me be completely
candid with you so you won't have to remind me--one of those
experiments was also the second mailing experiment.
Setting aside for a moment the second mailing experiment,
the other experiments all led us to move from 55 to 61 percent
as our estimate. That's the basis of it. It's rooted in some
experience with testing different kinds of procedures. Mailing
procedures, form procedures, and so forth got us to 61 percent.
Because the Census Bureau is a data-driven organization, it
doesn't like to estimate the behavior of the American
population where it doesn't have evidence. The 61 percent does
not take into account the impact of the advertising campaign or
the promotional effort, because we have no experience to sit
here and tell the U.S. Congress that that will increase it by 3
or 4 or 5 percent. We just don't know.
Obviously, the fact that we've gone public with the Plus
Five campaign is based upon our increasing confidence that we
will do better than the 61 percent, but we only have evidence
to predict a 61 percent response rate.
That's a long answer, but I wanted you to know that 61
percent wasn't just pulled out of the hat. It was based upon
demographic modeling, modeling of response rates, attention to
what will happen if you change the form this way, if you send
out three mailings instead of just the one mailing, if you use
first class instead of third class, and so forth.
Now, what is our contingency plan if it is below 61
percent? There are two big concerns. There are actually a lot
of big ones, but I'll just talk about the two biggest ones.
Mr. Miller. I've gone well past my 5 minutes.
Dr. Prewitt. I'm sorry.
Mr. Miller. But I'm interested, and I think the rest of the
committee is, too.
Mrs. Maloney. We are, too.
Mr. Miller. OK. Go ahead.
Dr. Prewitt. Two big concerns, obviously, at this stage.
One is if we can recruit enough people to do the job, and the
other is the response rate. Those two concerns interact.
Obviously, if we do extremely well with our recruitment
pool and the response rate slips a little bit, we still have
enough people to go out and do the job. Or if we don't do so
well in our recruitment but our response rate is slightly
higher, then we're not as anxious about the fact that we only
have 1.8 or 2 million people in our applicant pool and not 2.4.
Those two things are very tightly linked.
Then there is a third big component, which is the budget.
Obviously, we budgeted it at 61 percent and that labor pool. So
if the response rate were to dip much below 61 percent, 60
percent, 59 percent, we've got enough flexibility that we think
we can recover from that--57 percent, 56 percent, we're very
anxious and we're not sure we've got the flexibility and the
capacity to recover.
Now, what is our contingency for that? And I'm not trying
to be evasive. It depends almost entirely on what's happened to
our recruitment pool, because if at that point we're behind in
our recruitment as well as having a lower response rate, we
actually have a crisis, and we have nothing to say to you as a
contingency other than we will have to go out and probably
increase the wage rate. That would be one way we would increase
the labor pool, and that would, obviously, cost more money. We
obviously would have to perhaps extend the time that we're in
the field, because if we have got to go out and find--let us
use extremes. If it is a 40 percent response rate we can't do
non-response followup in 10 weeks, in all likelihood, unless we
hired, you know, 3 million people instead of 500,000 people.
Even then, the management of that would be not something that
we wanted to try to do.
So the contingency plan has got to be--if there's a serious
slighting of that response rate, it's got to be figured out in
terms of the size of the recruitment pool you've got in place,
and if it's insufficient, there's nothing that we can put in
place. We can put in a contingency for losing an office. We can
put in a contingency for losing a data capture center. We can
put in a contingency for address mail-back problems. We can put
in a contingency for lots of things. But there is really no
thing that you can do if you're really looking at a 55 or 50
percent response rate when we expect it to be 61, short of
rebuilding the census, which is what we would have to do.
Since I know this is important, I'll just go on with one
other sentence on this. The important thing is, we will know as
early as April 1 or 2 whether we will need a hearing on April
12th, which is our date for beginning to cut for non-response
followup.
That is, our internal models tell us at what rate we expect
to get responses, and for the most part the American people
respond to something like this, if they are going to, quickly,
and then it begins to taper off. There's no reason to presume
that you're going to get them. If you haven't gotten them by
April 1st, you're going to get a few more scattered out all the
way up into May, but you're not going to get big hunks later on
in the period. That we know from lots of experience.
So the important thing is that we will know early--that is,
a good 2 weeks before when we have to actually begin to put in
a non-response followup process into place. Therefore, when I
say ``come back and talk to Congress,'' I mean that fairly
seriously. It's not just a throw-away line.
But the important thing is that by the time we actually had
a hearing, on April 12th, we would have come in with very clean
plans and with a budget that would be required to sort of get
us out of this hole which we would have found ourselves in.
Sorry for that long answer.
Mr. Miller. As you know, the Congress has responded with
supplementals in the past, and we stand prepared to move as
quickly as necessary, but it is encouraging that 61 percent is
kind of the lower end of your expectations, we hope. One time
you were projecting, I think, 67 percent, and it dropped.
Dr. Prewitt. Right. That was the second mailing question.
Mr. Miller. OK.
Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Yes. Thank you very much.
I would like to followup on some of the chairman's
questions. Do you have examples of your three mailers with you
that are going to be going out?
Dr. Prewitt. No.
Mrs. Maloney. You don't?
Dr. Prewitt. Sorry.
Mrs. Maloney. Could you send it to us?
Dr. Prewitt. Yes.
Mrs. Maloney. Could we have a look at it? I'd just like to
see them. And maybe we could have them as part of the record so
we just have it as part of the official record.
Dr. Prewitt. Yes. Sorry.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mrs. Maloney. I'd like to turn to the transparency issue.
Dr. Prewitt, you have spoken before about the unprecedented
level of scrutiny the 2000 census is receiving from various
oversight groups, everyone from this subcommittee to the Census
Monitoring Board to the National Academy of Sciences and the
Secretary of Commerce's Advisory Committee is involved. In
fact, I understand the National Academy recently had another
meeting to review the Bureau's planned statistical design.
In many respects, this will be the most transparent census
our Nation has ever had. Would you please outline the major
events that have occurred in this regard since we met with you
last fall? And is there another group that is reviewing you
that I didn't mention? Just address the entire transparency
oversight issue, if you would elaborate and give us more
information on it.
Dr. Prewitt. Yes. Well, I do think the GAO reports that
have emerged since last fall have been a major part of this. I
think that, as this committee requested, the GAO did do a
thorough review of the revised budget, the $1.7 billion, and
asking the understandable question of making certain that this
$1.7 billion was associated with new procedures that we had to
put in place because of the Supreme Court ruling, and I think
the GAO report did confirm that. It was a very, very intensive
analysis of our budgeting and of our operations.
There was also, of course, the GAO report on the LUCA
program. There is now, most recently, one on the data capture.
So I would say that, in terms of the oversight activities,
the GAO has certainly done the most sophisticated and sustained
research and investigation.
The Inspector General's office, of course, has also
conducted, when appropriate, its own independent
investigations. It did one on the advertising campaign, to make
certain that this money was well spent, was appropriately
spent. We got very good marks from that review.
The Monitoring Board has issued a number of reports,
sometimes independently from the Presidential and congressional
side--I guess I would say mostly independently. The one that
was joint was on the advertising campaign. That was also very
favorable. The Monitoring Board, the congressional side of the
Monitoring Board, just issued one on the undercount issue. I
actually just got that this morning. I read drafts of it, but I
can't give you in detail what they are saying.
And, of course, we've had hearings with this committee. And
we do have a number of advisory committees, some six or seven
of them, that do meet quarterly. That means we have one meeting
almost all of the time.
So we do think that we have been enormously responsive to
the understandable interest of this country in how well census
2000 has been planned.
I think the most important thing I can say, Mrs. Maloney,
about the review that has taken place since then--and I don't
mean to judge my judgers harshly, but mainly the message is
that things are on track and on schedule, but there are still
risks.
Now, they don't necessarily say what to do about them,
other than this is a big, complicated operation and, therefore,
something could go wrong--including that we could have a lower
than anticipated response rate or we could have trouble with
recruitment.
We understand those risks. We are doing everything we can
to compensate for them.
So I would say that out of that effort we have yet to be
challenged to do something major that is different from what we
are already doing.
Just quickly, on the National Academy of Science meeting,
which was a very important meeting--it was a big public venue--
the leading critics of dual system estimation were invited to
make presentations and there was a lively exchange between the
critics and supporters. It was a very important meeting for us.
We took back some bits and pieces of things where we could
improve, but, again, it did not challenge the heart of what our
design is in any kind of sustained, systematic way that led us
to sort of say, ``Oh, my goodness, we'd better not be doing
what we are doing.'' I think quite the opposite--we felt
reasonably confident with what we had put before them.
We will have other meetings with the National Academy of
Science, with their advisory committees and so forth.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you.
May I ask another question?
Mr. Miller. OK. We're going to do another round, too.
Mrs. Maloney. Let me ask him really quick, because you
really went over, too.
Dr. Prewitt, last week I introduced legislation which would
create a contingency fund of $100 million for the census 2000.
This fund could be accessed if you ran into any types of
serious problems such as, for example, the mail response rate
drops significantly, as you mentioned, or the recruitment rate
was very low.
My bill also expands the labor pool for the 2000 census
among certain specific groups, including active duty members of
the military, those receiving certain Federal benefits, and
Federal retirees who have Federal buy-outs.
Have you had an opportunity to review this legislation?
Dr. Prewitt. Yes, I have.
Mrs. Maloney. I'd like your comments on it, please.
Dr. Prewitt. Yes. If I could take up first the issue of
expanding the recruitment pool, we, obviously, welcome anything
that will expand the recruitment pool. Even though, as I've
just testified, we are on schedule, there's something about a
recruitment pool which is always soft. You never know when it
is going to go--tomorrow morning the phones could quit ringing.
We don't expect that to happen, but they could, so we are still
in a mode where we are making every effort to increase the
recruitment pool.
I would say, with respect to the part of the legislation
which addresses the waiver issues, that obviously at a certain
point it will be too late. We are at 1.2 million now. We just
simply need all the help we can get this week and next week. So
I would urge the Congress, if it can act on those issues, to do
so expeditiously or it will simply be past the point where we
can take much advantage of it.
With respect to the contingency fund, as I have said in our
own response to the GAO report, obviously--and as I just said
to the chairman--I might say in the chairman's defense the
reason that his time went over 10 minutes is I talked about 10
minutes in response to one question. It is hard for us to
imagine that if we have a response rate seriously below 61
percent that we will be able to complete the census and provide
the apportionment numbers on schedule without additional funds.
I just don't know what else we could say. There's nothing else
that we could do.
I would say about this specific amount that you've
mentioned in your appropriation that the amount is hard to know
at this time because a 55 percent response rate kicks into
place perhaps a different number than the number that you've
put there. A 59 percent response rate--if other things have
gone very well--we might not need additional money. We might
then have to come back to the U.S. Congress--as you know, we're
under a restriction not to move moneys across frameworks. We
might have to come back and say, ``Look, we might want to move
some money across a framework in order to reach this.''
So it's hard for me to sit here today, for the reasons that
I've tried to explain a moment ago, to specify the amount that
we would need because it is so dependent upon the interaction
between the response rate and the quality of the recruitment
pool at that time.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Ryan.
Mr. Ryan. Hi, Dr. Prewitt. Thanks for coming by. I know you
are a busy guy, so we want to let you get back to your job.
I just have one quick question I want to ask you. I have
toured my local census office twice since they have been up and
running. I represent the First District of Wisconsin, and that
would be your Racine office. I think the number is 2546.
In each occasion that I visited with the workers of your
local census office 2546, they've presented me with a problem
that they have in recruiting, and it's in a letter I wrote to
you on January 20th. I haven't had a response yet. It is this:
they're not getting their paychecks on time. In one instance,
they waited 6 weeks for the last paycheck, the workers at the
census office.
They're still telling me--I spoke with them actually 2 days
ago--that they are still not getting their paychecks on time.
They believe that this is critical toward not only attracting,
but maintaining, a good work force.
My concern is that if this is happening all across the
country, let alone in our Racine office, and people are being
hired but not being paid, not even being paid for 6 weeks--you
know, 2 days I can understand, but 6 weeks, that's going to
hurt our ability to retain the work force we need.
Is this a problem that is occurring across the country? Is
this isolated to local census office 2546, or the Chicago
region? Or, if this has been a problem, has it been solved? It
apparently hasn't been solved in my neck of the woods. Could
you comment on that, please?
Dr. Prewitt. Well, I'm going to ask Marvin Raines to join
me, if I can.
Mr. Ryan. Please.
Dr. Prewitt. I would say, in general, Mr. Ryan, that it has
almost got to be an isolated problem, because if it were across
the country it would be a very, very major crisis at this
stage.
Mr. Ryan. That's what I thought, too.
Dr. Prewitt. And it is exactly the kind of crisis that I
would feel obligated to bring to the committee's attention,
because it is something that could put the census in jeopardy
if we are unable to pay our employees on a regular basis.
With respect to that particular office, can we offer some--
--
Mr. Raines. I'm afraid I can't offer anything right now.
Dr. Prewitt. We're a little surprised.
Mr. Ryan. Well, I sent you a letter on January 20th this
year, almost a month ago. I CC'd Stanley Moore, the director of
the Chicago office. I sent it to you. I would just read it to
you briefly, and then I won't chew up much more time.
Dr. Prewitt. We think we are in fairly good shape with
respect to responding to congressional letters. Honestly, Mr.
Ryan, our system doesn't seem to----
Mr. Ryan. Well, I sent you a followup letter on January 25,
as well, asking for response to the first letter. So I've sent
you two letters, one on the 20th and one on the 25th.
You're at the Bureau of Census, right? That's the address I
used.
Dr. Prewitt. I'm with Statistics.
Mr. Ryan. Suitland Federal Center, room 2049, Building
Three.
Dr. Prewitt. I don't doubt your address.
Mr. Ryan. Here's the point.
Dr. Prewitt. Yes.
Mr. Ryan. They're not getting paid at the Racine office.
They've lost some people because they're not getting paid, so
it is hurting their ability to attract workers. I hope it is an
isolated incident, but if it isn't, please, please look into
this.
Dr. Prewitt. We'll be in touch with your office tomorrow.
Mr. Ryan. OK.
Thank you. That's all I have.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Prewitt, we hear people talking about the difficulty of
recruiting. Is that just in certain areas, or is it across the
board?
Dr. Prewitt. Well, the most important thing to say is that
we have met every recruitment goal that we've had where we've
had to have so many people in place for a given operation to
date. That is, we've hired a total of about 160,000 people for
our different operations to date for our address listing work
across the country. Certain areas were harder than other areas,
but we hired everyone. We had to hire a lot of people for our
Alaska work. Of course, all of those were there on time.
We have 520 offices. Each of those have four managers.
That's obviously slightly in excess of 2,000 persons. All of
those have been hired.
So in none of the operations which hit a schedule
obligation were we not able to find the number of people we
needed.
Now, the next big one, as I said, starts on March 3rd with
the update/leave. I actually provided you a table in your
document, and you will see that across our 12 regions plus
Puerto Rico--that's in attachment A--what you have there is the
recruiting goal for the update/leave operation, which is the
next one, which is a quite substantial set of recruiting goals.
But in every region save one we are well above our target.
Now, the problem with the newspaper articles is that you've
got different operations in different regions. It's a very
complex system. You know, when do you need how many people to
do this operation and that operation? I don't want to sit here
today and promise you we will not have a recruitment problem,
but no operation in census 2000 has not gone forward on
schedule because of a recruitment problem.
Mr. Davis. But you're saying also that the goals are not
necessarily the same in every place.
Dr. Prewitt. They're extremely different because they are
different operations. Where you have a large update leave
operation, you've got to have a lot of people in your
recruitment pool right now because you're going to need them in
about 3 weeks.
Non-response followup starts April 27th. You actually don't
want--because a recruitment pool can also go sour, you know,
you think you've got it all, but by the time you don't call
them back for a month they say, ``Well, they must not want me.
I'll go do something else.''
So there is an extremely complex set of operations and
recruitment strategies you've got going on simultaneously.
The big picture I gave you is the accurate one, which is--I
think it is as of February 6th we were running about 5 percent
ahead of our national goal--not in every region, of course, and
not in every local office.
Mr. Davis. Are you hearing anything that's alarming coming
from any of the what we call ``hard to count'' or ``most
difficult to count'' communities and population groups?
Dr. Prewitt. We are not thus far. Again, I can only say
thus far. We are not hitting particularly complicated pockets,
like we can't get enough Hispanic enumerators, or we're not
doing very well in the inner cities. There are always small
pockets, but there's no pattern to suggest that we're going to
not be able to hire the enumerators from those areas as of now.
I was saying to the chairman before the meeting, I, myself,
am trying to understand where so many of these applicants are
coming from.
I just yesterday got some data from the Labor Department.
The Labor Department has a new category in its presentation of
the employment status of the civilian population that it has
just added. It's, ``Persons who currently want a job but who
are not in the labor market.'' That is, they don't meet the
test of people who have been actively seeking a job, which is
what puts you in the labor market, but this is a new category
of people actually who would take a job or are interested in a
job but haven't yet been actively seeking it.
By the estimate from the Labor Department, that totals
4,552,000 people, nearly as many people as are unemployed. That
is, there are a lot of people looking for a job and we think we
must be getting them. There are about 9 million people between
the ages of 55 and 65 who are not in the labor market. We are
getting them. Out of our total applicant pool, more than two-
thirds are women and more than two-thirds are over 40. So we're
getting into some kind of recruitment pool that we didn't
expect to get to.
Our last count, we have 70,000 people in our applicant pool
who are non-citizens. We did not have that in 1990.
So we're putting lots of pieces together. We want to
understand this, ourselves. We want to understand why it seems
to be going well, because if it is we are less likely to run
into a problem, so we're studying every day what is accounting
for the fact that we are running ahead of schedule.
There may be a particular problem in a particular office in
Racine that I'm simply not aware of, but I can only tell you
that if this were an across-the-board crisis, either for
payment reasons or recruitment reasons, I would have to be
sharing that with you. I don't want to surprise this committee
with something of that magnitude.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller. We're going to have another round, and Mr. Ryan
has to go to another meeting, so let Mr. Ryan go first and then
we'll go.
Mr. Ryan.
Mr. Ryan. I won't belabor the point about our Racine, WI,
office, Dr. Prewitt, but I would very much appreciate your
timely response to that and hope that this isn't occurring in
other parts of the country.
I'd like to ask, Mr. Chairman, that some articles be
included in the record.
Mr. Miller. Without objection.
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Mr. Ryan. What these articles indicate--and I'm just
interested in your testimony where you cite that Boston is the
only region with a low applicant pool. I see the chart in your
testimony, but a couple days ago--I think it was at your press
briefing on the 2nd--you said that you were behind in Atlanta
and Detroit. In addition, we see a lot of these media accounts
that suggest that both the Navajo and Cherokee Nations are not
applying for census employment at the requisite rate.
Can you reconcile these media reports and your discussion
at your last press briefing on Detroit and Atlanta with your
current testimony of Boston as being the only problem?
Dr. Prewitt. Yes, sir. The comment I made at the press
conference the other day about Detroit and Atlanta, I believe,
was actually based upon a different set of data from the data
that we put in attachment A, which is why there is some
difference. And, indeed, things move very fast. In fact, I
think it is Atlanta where we were behind our overall goal, and
we moved that up by over 5 percent over the weekend.
We have all kinds of things we begin to do when we see that
curve starting to slip. We double or increase the number of
recruitment assistants that we have in place. We have the
capacity to do that.
So if somebody is running well ahead of schedule, they're
getting less recruitment money, less recruitment advertising.
Somebody below, they suddenly get more personnel to do the
recruiting and more advertising money.
So that set of data that I talked about at the press
conference is, one, old data. You know, it is 10-days-old data.
The data that we put before you today primarily focuses on the
update leave, because that's our next major operation, and I
thought that's what you would be most interested in learning
about.
The press reports that one can see, the Window Rock--I
looked at the Window Rock data, for example. By our account,
we're way ahead of our target in Window Rock for update leave,
which is the big operation that we have in the Navajo Nation,
so I can't explain that story.
Part of what happens is that, you know, you say, ``We're
halfway there.'' We only need to be halfway there. And the
press decides, ``My goodness, they're only halfway there.''
Mr. Ryan. Yes.
Dr. Prewitt. And so that becomes the story. Or sometimes
you will have a local recruiter or somebody who works for the
Census Bureau who decides to use the press to generate a little
anxiety in the community to try to improve the applicant rate.
So a lot of things are happening in these press stories.
All I can really say is that if we had a national problem right
now on the recruitment front I would have presented to you
different testimony. Nothing would be more foolish than for me
to come and sound reasonably optimistic right now about our
recruitment efforts and then to have to come back to you a week
from now and say, ``Guess what? It doesn't look like it is
going to happen.'' I would much rather err on the side of
caution than optimism on something as critical as this.
So all I can repeat is that nationally we are ahead of
schedule. With respect to our operations, we are already
there--that is, with respect to the immediate operations--and
that certainly includes the Navajo Nation, which is a big
update leave area.
And so I can't explain that Window Rock press story.
Mr. Ryan. OK. Well, I look forward to your answer on our
paycheck problem.
Dr. Prewitt. May I now correct the record? We have received
your letters, and I'm sorry that I did not know that, but we
have received your letters. Both the field office and the
region are investigating, and I will have an answer to you by
the end of the week making this very clear exactly what is
going on.
Mr. Ryan. OK.
Dr. Prewitt. And I should say that if there were widespread
pay problems, that word would be getting out.
Mr. Ryan. That was my concern. In Racine in our office we
have a 6-week delay. It's hurting the recruitment. I was
concerned that this was happening somewhere else.
Dr. Prewitt. Sure. That's understandable. Thank you. Great.
Mr. Ryan. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.
Dr. Prewitt. And not to forget we have all these--you've
seen all of our launch books and all of our--what did you use
to call them? Flight schedules.
Mr. Ryan. That's right. Yes. We're going to take a look at
those a little later. Thanks.
Mr. Miller. Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. After you.
Mr. Miller. OK.
Let me bring up a question about ACE, just briefly. I know
you're working on it. I know at the meeting last week you
mentioned the Janet Norwood Committee. And I know it is still
in the process.
What is the timeline to have a plan ready for us to have a
hearing? I don't want to interfere and have a hearing on it in
the middle of the census, but I think the public needs to be
aware of it.
I'm glad the meeting, from what I've heard about it last
week, it was a very open discussion and all sides were heard
and that's good.
Dr. Prewitt. Yes.
Mr. Miller. And I know we have a difference of opinion on
that issue, but----
Dr. Prewitt. Well, I think we don't have a difference of
opinion about the importance of doing an ACE. I think we all
know that we want to do the quality check on the census, and
there's no other way to do a quality check other than to go
back and find out how well you did, and that's what ACE does.
I think there is a difference of viewpoint about whether it
should be used to adjust the data, but not the ACE, itself. And
I think that certainly the debate in front of the Norwood
Committee, which was a quite constructive debate, really just
focused on that issue, and not at all focused upon the fact
that the Census Bureau should or should not have an ACE and do
dual system estimation.
I think maybe the most interesting thing that emerged in
that discussion, which we are prepared to talk about to this
committee any time--I mean, I appreciate your sensitivity to
where we are, but a somewhat different set of people could put
together material for this committee if they would like to have
a hearing on ACE.
We are where we need to be on that schedule, as well. We
needed to have listed all of our ACE sample blocks. Those are
now all fully listed. We are now doing the check of the
housing--the address work between that and the census file. So
we are moving along on schedule with respect to that operation,
as well.
Mr. Miller. Hiring and opening offices, are you opening
separate----
Dr. Prewitt. That's much further down the line, and that
won't happen until the summer.
Mr. Miller. How many offices will be involved? Do you know
offhand, the different staff?
Dr. Prewitt. We actually run the ACE out of our census
offices, not out of our decennial census offices, but our
standard regional offices.
Mr. Miller. But you'll be hiring separate staff?
Dr. Prewitt. Not really. We will depend on the most
successful interviewers from the non-response follow-up [NRFU]
operation for ACE. In order to further support independence of
the ACE, enumerators will not be allowed to work in the same
blocks they were assigned during nonresponse followup.
Mr. Miller. What's the timeline for ACE? When does that
begin?
Dr. Prewitt. ACE could begin as early as late May for
certain LCOs that have completed NRFU. ACE will be carried out
on a flow basis as each completes its work.
Jay Waite will give you the details.
Mr. Waite. We actually begin our ACE interviewing on an
LCO-by-LCO basis right after we are sure we're through with
non-response followup. Because of the independence, we don't
want interviewers out there in the blocks trying to do ACE
interviewing and then have the census enumerators that are
there doing non-response followup become aware that their block
is one that is being checked, so they would work extra hard or
maybe not as hard on it.
As far as the interviewer pool, because of the independence
it's possible that people working on non-response followup
would also work on ACE, but they would not work in the same
area where they had worked on non-response followup.
Once they've gone to do any work on the ACE, they are not
able to go back and work on any part of the census, because we
are trying to make sure we have the independence.
We have an office we call an ACERO office, which is
basically associated with our regional census centers. That's
for independent purposes so that people don't know in the local
census offices where these particular blocks are.
Associated with each LCO or in the general vicinity of each
local office there's a small amount of space where supplies are
kept, which has a separate entrance that people working on the
individual ACE survey could get to, but that's physically
separate with a separate lock and a separate entrance from the
regular LCO.
Mr. Miller. What happens if the mail response rate is
significantly below 61 percent? How does that affect ACE? You'd
have to be in the field longer, as you said.
Mr. Waite. In any individual LCO, to the extent that we did
not get non-response follow-up done on time, we would not be
able to start ACE on time. I mean, we cannot be out there doing
both operations at the same time.
Mr. Miller. Right. There's a contamination.
Mr. Waite. So I say it is on an LCO-by-LCO basis.
Mr. Miller. Right.
Mr. Waite. If 6 weeks into the operation a particular LCO
essentially had their non-response followup done, we could
begin doing ACE in that LCO.
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Waite. But we wouldn't start in any LCO until the non-
response followup for that LCO was completed.
Mr. Miller. Yes. Dr. Prewitt, I believe that we need a
quality check. I think that's expected and appropriate and all
that. But I do have serious concerns about both the legality
and the statistical validity of adjusted data by census track
or census blocks and the adjusted set of numbers the way
they're used, their validity.
I think there is a legitimate debate within the statistical
community, and certainly within the legal community, on that
issue. At some stage, we will want to discuss it in more
detail.
Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Our country, Dr. Prewitt, is experiencing the lowest
unemployment levels in recent history, with an exceedingly
tight labor market, yet you seem to be reaching your
recruitment goals. I'd like your comments to further help us
understand why you're able to reach them, even with this
extremely tight labor market.
One of the cities or areas that was the most under-counted
last time was my own great home State and city of New York, and
I just would like to know how the recruitment process is going
in New York. Are there any specific problems? And do you know
what percentage of your recruitment goals you've reached in New
York?
If you don't have that with you, you could get back to me
later in writing.
Dr. Prewitt. Well, I can certainly give you the New York
region. I can't give you right now New York City and I can't
give you your District.
New York region actually is ahead of target. It is at about
50 percent of its overall target for the general operation, and
for non-response followup, of course, since there are very few
in the New York region, we have no trouble whatsoever
staffing--I'm sorry, for mail-back update leave operations, we
have no difficulty whatsoever meeting that target. So we will
clearly be doing the New York region operations on schedule.
New York City, of course, is a fairly difficult city to
count, and this goes to the issue that Mr. Waite just
addressed.
We have to make an LCO-by-LCO decision, and not all LCOs
will be finished in 10 weeks, and New York was one of the areas
in 1990 where we had to keep the LCOs open somewhat longer.
One of the important things we've done in 2000 is to look
at the areas which gave us the hardest time in 1990 and
compensate for that in our recruitment effort, in our planning,
in our supervision, and so forth. So it's not as if we don't
know the areas where we are going to have the hardest non-
response followup effort and that we haven't already done what
we can to build in and deepen the capacity for those areas.
Mrs. Maloney. Yes.
Dr. Prewitt. Nevertheless, these are very difficult areas
to count.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you. I understand that next week--and
you mentioned it in your opening statement--that the Bureau
will be kicking off a major new promotional effort for the
census 2000 road tour. Can you give us some details? Will there
be one of these road tours in New York? Where are these? You
said there will be 10 of them. Could you just elaborate?
Dr. Prewitt. There will be 12, 1 in each region, and each
have an independent schedule, and obviously targeted on the
hard-to-count areas. So yes, there certainly will be one in New
York, indeed. Without perhaps revealing too much, I can say
that the kick-off event, itself, will actually start in
downtown, New York.
Mrs. Maloney. Really?
Dr. Prewitt. The big national launch of it will be on
national television at an event that we have reason to believe
will be very widely seen.
Mrs. Maloney. OK. Great. The paid advertising campaign is
now in full swing, and I understand it is probably too early to
have measured any impact from the campaign, but has there been
any oversight done on the campaign now? What sort of evaluation
do you plan to do on the ad campaign to see, in fact, if it is
working?
Dr. Prewitt. Well, we have a fairly extensive evaluation
effort that's underway. We did a baseline survey under contract
to NORC at the University of Chicago, and then we do a mid-term
evaluation, then we do a followup evaluation after the census
is over that tries to gauge the impact of the advertising
campaign.
We are exploring ways to even deepen that evaluation work.
Obviously, Young & Rubicam, which is represented here today,
can also comment on this. They do their own internal work, as
well--that is, the advertising industry actually tries to study
the impact of ads.
I might say that one of our partners did a nice thing for
us. They were studying the ad campaign for the Super Bowl, and
they included a look at the Census Bureau ad, which was
mentioned by both of you. Of the people who watched the Super
Bowl, 46 percent said they remembered having seen the census
ad, and of those 46--which is a huge number of people.
Mrs. Maloney. That's great.
Dr. Prewitt. Of those 46 percent, 44 percent said it would
motivate them to complete the form, and the rest said it
wouldn't have effect one way or the other, because maybe they
were already going to complete the form. And no one said that
it would act as a deterrent.
And then we asked a third question, or a third question was
asked on our behalf by our partner agency, and that question
was: Are you the person in the household who is most likely to
fill in the census form? And my recollection is about 75
percent of the respondents were that person.
So we felt very good about that. This did break through. It
did get noticed. And it was motivating.
Mrs. Maloney. That's very good news. I was watching
television around the Super Bowl, and they started rating the
ads from the last Super Bowl, so it will be interesting if our
census ad is up there at the top and wins the prize for having
had the most impact on the people.
Dr. Prewitt. I will say, on behalf of Young & Rubicam, they
had obviously not designed that ad to be on the Super Bowl,
because it turned out to be not as expensive to get that ad
placement as it might have otherwise been because of the time
that it was chosen, and also they were up against some very
tough competition. That is, you're up against people who are
spending millions and millions of dollars just to design the ad
just for the Super Bowl. So there was a little hesitancy about
the competitive environment for the ad.
But, nevertheless, the decision was it was worthwhile
making the effort, of course, on behalf of the census, and we
were all pleased at the initial responses that have come back
in from the agency, from the advertising researchers. It does
suggest it more than held its own in terms of the quality of
the ad, itself.
Mrs. Maloney. Well, how many ads will the average American
see? And will people in traditionally under-counted
neighborhoods see more ads than an area that may be over
counted?
Dr. Prewitt. Yes. Our estimate is or Young & Rubicam's
estimate is that the typical media consumer in the African
American population, the hard-to-reach African American
population, will receive about 122 impressions--that's
television, radio, print, and so forth--122 different
impressions, and the typical Hispanic media consumer will--I
think the number is 105 impressions. Most of us will probably
see in the neighborhood of 20 impressions, because we're simply
not the consumers of the targeted media that is going after the
hard to count.
So there is a huge difference. I mention that because if
you don't see a whole lot of advertising you may not think a
whole lot is out there, but it may well be your media
consumption habits.
Mrs. Maloney. My time is up. Thank you.
Mr. Miller. The ad that was used was, I think, maybe one of
our favorites of the ones we saw, but that's tough competition
to run ads on Super Bowl because that's the Super Bowl of
advertising, at least in my opinion, and you see the hurting of
cats and the dog for the Budweiser crashed in the van and all,
but actually that was one of the cuter ones, so it was good to
see that one.
I'm glad we have a degree of optimism at this stage. I
think we are going to have another hearing on March 8th, to
kind of have the status and the update. I appreciate that.
I ask unanimous consent that all Members' and witnesses'
opening statements be included in the record. Without
objection, so ordered.
Mrs. Maloney. May I add one more question, because I don't
get this opportunity often and I want to find out from Dr.
Prewitt how it's going.
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mrs. Maloney. It sounds like the paid ad campaign is doing
very well. Could you inform us about the public service
announcements? And are you meeting your goals? Has the paid
advertising campaign helped increase leverage for the placement
of public service ads with the networks? If I recall, in 1990
we relied totally on pro bono and public service. If you could
give us an overview.
Dr. Prewitt. Just quickly on that, the total dollar amount
of value added advertisement is already $8.7 million. That is,
our ad campaign has been increased by 8.5 percent just on value
added.
Just before we came to this hearing we had a marvelous 15
or 20 minutes with Young and Rubicam, where they were showing
us the rough cut of three new ads that are pro bono ads, public
service ads. They feature Ivan Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, and
Derek Jeter--that is geographic spread, ethnic spread, of
course, these three very, very key baseball players, in very
high-quality ads, delivering the confidentiality message.
We already know that those ads will be used in the public
service announcement space of NBC, and we are fairly certain
other networks--it's going to be shown, for example--am I
saying more than I should be saying?
Voice. No. That's all right.
Dr. Prewitt. I just don't know what's public record yet. It
will be shown during the NBA finals, for example. And they will
all be shown on the opening day of baseball season, which, of
course, is a very big media event, and it's still early enough
to try to have a little bump, even though we're in early April
by then.
These are very creative ads, very powerful ads. We think
they are such good ads that they are likely to be used
disproportionately as public service ads because they are so
attractive.
Mrs. Maloney. The chairman has informed me that he has a
conflict. He has to be at another hearing. I have about five
more questions I wanted to cover. May I submit them to you in
writing?
Dr. Prewitt. Yes.
Mrs. Maloney. And if you would respond, I'd appreciate it.
Dr. Prewitt. Certainly.
Mr. Miller. In fact, I think I was flying up here the day
after the Super Bowl and the ``USA Today'' I was reading had
actually a rating of all the ads on Super Bowl Sunday, and we
were right in the center, and with that competition.
Mrs. Maloney. Should have been No. 1.
Mr. Miller. Well, we sure weren't in the bottom 10 which
they listed also.
Mrs. Maloney. Our cause is No. 1.
Mr. Miller. That's right. But we don't hurt cats. But at
times you think you may be herding cats.
In case there are any other additional questions that
Members may have for our witnesses, I ask unanimous consent for
the record to remain open for 2 weeks for Members to submit
questions for the record, and that Dr. Prewitt submit written
answers as soon as practical.
Without objection, so ordered.
I have to run to another hearing. Thank you very much for
being here, and good luck.
Dr. Prewitt. Thank you, sir.
[Whereupon, at 3:28 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned,
to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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