Spending Billions on the Census, WTF?

It only took me a few minutes to complete, online. I didn't know what the big deal was.

Census 2020 should be mandatory for electronic returns of the questionnaires.

No one will want to knock on doors not knowing the virus status of those inside and those inside will not want to open their doors, not knowing the virus status of the census takers.

Therefore I say the Census 2020 needs to become Census 2021.

why cant tax returns be used for this

A lot of people, especially the elderly with incomes under a certain level, don't have to file, R3.

I was astounded how many people there are with incomes so low they do not have to file a tax return.

Can someone explain what this sentence means:

"Census 2020 should be mandatory for electronic returns of the questionnaires. "

The Census should be required for people who answer online?

The Census should be required so that people answer the questionaire online?

Either meaning makes no real sense.

Three ways to respond to the 2020 Census: (1) electronically with a unique access code sent to residences, (2) paper questionnaires that wiull be sent to residences that do not respond electronically, and (3) a visit by a Census taker.

If people respond electronically or by paper questionnaire, then fewer Census takers need to be hired this Spring and Summer.

I received a follow-up mailing reminding me that it was required by law before I had even gotten around to reading the instructions on the initial mailing. My brother told me it took him 10 minutes. I don't see how, since it took me less than 5 minutes to complete mine. I think it would have been more cost-effective if they had allowed a little more time before sending out the second mailing. Heck, I even took the extra 30 seconds to look up 'Chamorro' to refresh my memory while I was completing the survey.

I did it online. Painless.

5 minutes here.

It's not legal. Before the 2000 census they wanted to use sampling but the Supreme Court ruled it must be an ACTUAL PHYSICAL COUNT.

When my government doesn’t care about me? Fuck their census.

I was a census taker many years ago.

If you do not answer and will not talk to the census taker, then the census taker will ask your neighbors to answer for you. So they will get the info anyway, and your neighbors will know that you refused to take part in the census.

This is really important. The Census count determines legislative seats and federal funding for your community.

I don’t have a “community” r13. I’m not here to give away my privacy to a system that will let me die in the street. I’m not a statistic.

[quote] I’m not a statistic.

But you ARE BLANCHE you are.

Um---you do live somewhere R14. That is a "community" even if you do not engage with it.

And if you prefer your neighbors to give away your privacy, speculate on your ethnicity, discuss with the census taker if that guy who keeps coming round is a resident or a visitor in your home, etc. go ahead. The result is the same.

And when you get a really nosy neighbor, you can get a lot of info on a lot of people.

The Census is an important government function. R14 is a deplorable idiot.

I took me about three minutes online.

I did mine online already. Why do they need to know what kind of "Hispanic" I am (none)?

Funny how they include the ghetto vernacular of 'stay' (how many peeps live/stay at yo crib, dog?) for residency.

r19, it's very important to know if you're Hispanic Hispanic.

Being an item on the Census means the government has to take note of it.

It was one of the reasons it was so important to get gay partnerships on the census way back when. And why not enumerating how many people consider themselves gay will hurt civil rights action for the next ten years.

With coronavirus monopolizing the news, people are going to forget about the April 1 deadline for the census. News better start talking about it again as time's running out.

[quote]This is really important. The Census count determines legislative seats and federal funding for your community.

Right, because the fucking Republicans won't gerrymander to continue to win unearned seats,

I think R23 is right. We should just give up and let the Rethugs do what they are going to do anyway.

What is to be gained by impeding them?

I'm shocked and dismayed that there is nowhere to indicate LGBTQ status, which is more important to me than my racial/ethnic origins.

How will we matter if we cannot be counted?

"What is to be gained by impeding them?"

McTurdle is using this catastrophe to give his billionaire buds a belated Xmas pre$ent.

"A major sticking point is a $500 billion pool of money for loans and loan guarantees that Republicans want to create, which some Democrats are labeling a “slush fund” because the Treasury Department would have broad discretion over who receives the money. There is little precedent for a program with a similar size and scope.

“They’re throwing caution to the wind for average workers and people on Main Street and going balls to the wall for people on Wall Street,” Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) said of Republicans."

It'll have the deadline extended, as just happened with taxes.

Where were you, R25, when we were trying to get LGBTQ status on the census form?

r25, the problem with lgbtq* status is that it's absolutely guaranteed to undercount, by a *huge* percentage, because there's a lot of people who absolutely, positively won't report being gay on a non-anonymized form with multiple layers of bulletproof anonymity. It would only take one successful hacking attack to out the entire US (or at least, anyone who said 'yes'). Lots of guys are out to the local gay community, but not family members, coworkers, etc.

Yeah, why are there so many distinctions for “Hispanic”?

When they ask for further breakdown of “White”, I just wrote “Northern European”. How detailed a breakdown do they want? “1/8 English, 1/4 Lithuanian, 1/8 Irish, etc...?