Journal of Economic and Social Measurement

This paper introduces a special issue of the Journal of Economic and Social Measurement that considers challenges that face the decennial US census at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Some involve data needs and public policy, some involve political issues, and others are technical. National and local aspects are each examined. Because the census is bound to politics by Article I of the US Constitution, competing political forces have continually shaped it. Policy actions are examined that set the stage for census conflicts in the late 20th century. Suggestions are offered for reducing these conflicts in the 21st century. The exploration of technical issues facing the census generally focuses on the question of how to accurately measure the rapidly changing distribution and composition of the US population in a cost-effective manner.

Important transitions under way here and abroad suggest that the framework of our informal national measurement system must evolve to meet new policy needs. Current trends signal that this framework must allow for designing policy responses to a likely shift in global power. Perhaps the other major new change relates to changes in the environment, especially as these changes interact with the population, housing, and economic domains that the census measures. In this paper, I address broad framework questions, and sketch out likely directions for policy measurement, with particular attention to interactions across what have been designed as discrete measurement domains.

Transportation has long relied on the decennial census to provide critical information including detailed worker characteristics and journey-to-work flows needed to plan, analyze, manage, and implement transportation systems and programs. The Census Bureau has implemented an on-going annual survey program, The American Community Survey (ACS), to produce the detailed transportation information traditionally gathered once a decade through the census long form. In May 2005, a conference entitled Census Data for Transportation Planning: Preparing for the Future was held in Irvine California. The main objectives of that conference were to: 1) demonstrate applications of 2000 Census data in transportation; 2) review the ACS and assess its usefulness for transportation; 3) recommend improvements to census products and methods; and 4) recommend actions that federal, state, and regional agencies and the Census Bureau can take to improve the use of census transportation products. This paper, summarizing and building on the conference, discusses census information from the perspective of the transportation community. It looks at uses of census data, presents key issues related to the efficacy of the ACS for transportation, presents possible solutions to issues with current data programs, and concludes with suggestions that should enhance the value of census data for transportation.

Although not originally intended as such, the US census has become a "Commons" in which private benefits are gained at the expense of public costs. The historical development of the census as a Commons first clearly emerged with the release of the 1970 census results, and since that time contentious litigation over census undercount error has become a standard part of the decennial census landscape. Political battles within the federal government have gone hand-in-hand with these litigation activities. They culminated with a Supreme Court decision on the legality of statistically adjusting census 2000 counts for estimated undercount error. As these battles raged, professional interest in providing methodological fixes for net census undercount error increased while public participation in the census generally declined. This paper examines the history behind these legal battles, the legislative acts, and judicial decisions that led to the 16th Amendment and the loss of the careful balance between public costs and private benefits crafted by the Founding Fathers in Article I of the Constitution. The paper identifies the role that historical actions played in making the census into a Commons, thereby setting the stage for modern day census litigation and other forms of conflict. We observe that as a Commons, the census is facing a potential collapse that cannot be prevented by methodological developments. We conclude by noting that a course of political action may be the best course for preventing such a collapse.

This article considers the accurate measurement of international migration to and from the United States, both legal and unauthorized, and how these measurement characteristics might affect the accuracy and utility of the 2010 census and other data sources. It provides a brief overview of the recent magnitude and impacts of US immigration. It delineates the role of immigration in determining an accurate census and discusses specific parameters that must be accurately measured in order to adequately assess immigration, both legal and unauthorized. It makes specific recommendations for addressing the effects of such factors.

As school districts attempt to address future planning needs for the next 10 years, they are increasingly using in-depth and comprehensive demographic data to assist them in the decision making process. Data at the school district level is available from the 2000 decennial census through the Census Bureau and the National Center for Education Statistics. Unfortunately, demographic data for sub district areas must be complied by aggregating block level census data to various sub district geographies. Without access to accurate block and block group census data, school districts would have no reliable demographic data to use in there efforts to develop short and long term strategic plans addressing the future composition and distribution of their students or to make accurate projections of future demand based on the unique characteristic of the district sub areas.

Racial and ethnic categories in the US census have continually changed. In this paper, we address the question: How do high levels of immigration and a growing multiracial population challenge census racial and ethnic categories? We examined data from the 2000 Census 5 percent IPUMS to compare racial responses of native- and foreign-born Hispanics, Asians, and Middle Easterners, and native-born multiracial Hispanics, Asians, and Middle Easterners, by ancestry. The relationship between race and ancestry can be instructive. If people understand and identify with census racial categories, we expect considerable overlap between their reported race and ancestry. For some groups, including Europeans, Africans, and Middle Easterners (regardless of nativity) and foreign-born Asians, ancestry and race overlapped well. A serious challenge to current census racial categories is the large and growing numbers of people who reported Some Other Race (SOR) alone (primarily non-Cuban Hispanics) or in combination with another race (a diverse population that includes multiracial Hispanics, Middle Easterners, and Asians). One way of addressing this problem is to merge the current race and Hispanic questions, drop the SOR category, and add the ancestry question to the short-form census, changes that may more effectively meet statistical, government, and other needs.

The US Census Bureau has proposed the use of demographic projections as population controls for the American Community Survey at a fine level of geographic and demographic stratification. These projections are known to be imperfect. Bias and variance of post-stratification estimators with imperfect population controls at various levels of aggregation are considered. The bias and variance are computed with respect to the "model" (including data generation and demographic projection) or with respect to the "design" (including coverage, sampling, response and demographic projection). Bias and variance depend in a complex way on the interactions of demographic projection errors with undercoverage error and nonresponse. Numerical examples illustrate that in the presence of imperfect demographic projections, control at higher levels of aggregation may be better in terms of bias than control at a fine level of post-stratification.