Uncle Sam Needs You . . . and You . . . in 1990 Census

For 200 years, it’s been as punctual as Halley’s Comet or a groundhog searching for a shadow. And while it fails to announce if spring has sprung, it offers revealing insights into American society, from our ethnic origins to whether we rode to work last week in a ferryboat or a Ferrari.

It’s time for the U.S. Census, an exhaustive ritual of self-examination that kicks off each new decade by virtually turning the nation--and Orange County--inside out. Beginning in late March, local residents will get their chance to stand up and be counted along with country cousins and city slickers across America.

The demographic snapshot will compute the nation’s new population, which is expected to rise to 250 million people, about 2.3 million of them in Orange County. It also serves as the federal government’s prime yardstick for measuring the needs of individual communities and delivers a wealth ofinformation on how we lead our lives.

As a result of the new tally, Orange County is expected to gain at least one more representative in Congress and the state Legislature, as well as a bigger share of about $30 billion in federal tax dollars that trickle down for a variety of services, from freeway construction to school lunch programs.

The county should also gain a new perspective of itself.

Demographers predict the 1990 census will finally topple the long-held stereotype of Orange County as a homogeneous stronghold of well-heeled whites, depicting instead a region that includes a cosmopolitan mix of Latinos, Indochinese and others. Moreover, the Census Bureau will make a concerted attempt to count the homeless, providing Orange County its most complete reckoning to date of the poverty that exists amid the palm trees and BMWs.

“This census will show that Orange County is a much more complex region than is often our image,” said Mark Baldassare, a professor of social ecology at UC Irvine. “It will demonstrate that we’re not just the home of middle-class families, but of a diverse population.”

Counting so varied a citizenry will not be easy. While most residents will dutifully fill out and mail back the questionnaires the Census Bureau dispatches the last week in March, demographers and other experts worry that illegal aliens and other immigrants fearful of the government may prove more elusive.

Eager to avoid an undercount in the very communities that need federal assistance the most, census officials and city leaders have launched ambitious programs to promote participation in the survey. But even those best efforts could fall short. For example, some local officials predict that one of every five people in the county’s burgeoning Asian community will not be counted.

“Many Asians and Latinos have a traditional fear and distrust of government,” noted Fernando Tafoya, a district manager in central Orange County for the Census Bureau. “Now we’re asking them to step forward and provide information on their household. There’s a natural hesitancy.”

For the vast majority of Orange County residents, however, the census will be little more than a short exercise with a black lead pencil, toting up family members and answering a few simple questions about where they live. Only one of six households will receive a longer version of the form, with 59 questions probing a wide range of topics.

The answers that cascade into the Census Bureau after April 1, the deadline for mailing back the national survey, will have a broad impact on the lives of residents in Orange County and across the nation.

For starters, the census will count the nation’s population--as it has every decade since 1790--to provide data for congressional reapportionment, the constitutional foundation and legal purpose of the survey.

But the census has come to be appreciated less for its head counts, which can be predicted ahead of time within 1% or 2%, and more for what it reveals about the national condition. The census monitors social and economic patterns through the decades, producing statistics for a variety of uses.

For academic researchers, the census unearths shards of data that no mere survey could reveal. It arms businesses with high-powered statistics for marketing battles, plotting the characteristics of consumers down to the smallest city block. Urban planners use census figures to decipher details on commuting patterns, housing conditions and economic diversity.

“The census provides a comprehensive picture of Orange County and the nation,” said Bill Gayk, the county demographer. “It gives us a better idea of who the public is, who our clients are.”

But such a portrait is only as good as the answers people give.

There are few deterrents to fudging on the census aside from a sense of honesty, old-fashioned national pride and a virtually unenforced law requiring U.S. citizens to answer all census questions to the best of their knowledge. The same law keeps the information confidential for 72 years, the average American’s life span.

Despite the leeway for statistical mischief, census officials say that the vast majority of Americans appear to take the census seriously.

The census comes at a price--this time, it is expected to cost the government $2.6 billion. That’s more than $10 for each man, woman and child tallied. The bill exceeds the budget of many states and is double the cost of the 1980 count. But supporters say it’s the price of our democratic process. They argue that the 1990 census, which marks the survey’s bicentennial year, will see a count that’s not only bigger than its predecessors, but better.

Federal officials begin planning the census questionnaire years in advance, holding scores of public hearings and entertaining ideas from government officials, outside researchers and interest groups. Lobbying for space on the form can grow heated and combative. Some pet food companies, for instance, have in recent years conducted intense letter-writing campaigns in a fruitless push for a census question tallying the number of dogs and cats in U.S. households.

“The census has to serve the widest possible set of users, and the competition for turf on the questionnaire is intense,” said Al Paez, data requirements chief for the Census Bureau’s national planning division. “Every inch on that form is worth a fortune for commercial marketing and academic research.”

While the bureau by policy avoids adding lots of questions each decade, the 1990 census includes some changes. Aside from the usual queries about the basic characteristics of a home and who lives there, the 1990 census has questions that should help illuminate changing family structures in America, with new categories to count stepchildren as well as unmarried couples.

Other changes are sprinkled through the longer version of the census. Motorists are asked not only how far they drive to work, but when they leave home each morning, a query that could help transportation planners in bustling Orange County better manage the roadways. New questions also inquire about condominium fees, home equity loans and solar heating. The census even asks if you own a stable of seven or more motor vehicles--or don’t own any at all.

Perhaps the most notable addition to the 1990 census doesn’t appear on the form. Beginning at 6 p.m. on March 20, census workers will fan out on streets across the country for the most aggressive nationwide count of the homeless in U.S. history.

While census officials are careful not to label the effort as the end-all tally of the homeless, they expect far more accurate numbers than in 1980, when shelters and flophouses were surveyed but people on the streets were largely missed.

The homeless weren’t the only ones left uncounted in the last census, which omitted an estimated 1.4% of the population. Most of the 3 million people missed in 1980 were minorities, illegal aliens (who by law are included in the count) and other newcomers unfamiliar with the need for an accurate tally of the nation’s population, authorities say. The undercount among black and Latino inner-city residents, for example, was estimated at 12%.

The inability to count these people has sparked an important debate. With the census serving as a key measure for determining how much money is doled out by the federal government and state during the next 10 years, several cities in Orange County and elsewhere in the country stand to lose millions of dollars if their populations aren’t properly tallied.

Hoping to offset an undercount, officials in many of these cities have been organizing special committees and planning promotional campaigns.

Santa Ana has launched perhaps the most ambitious effort, earning praise from top Census Bureau officials as one of four “model cities” in the nation. The city is working to enlist local supermarkets to stuff grocery bags with information pamphlets, recruit school children to spread the word and produce a TV video extolling the merits of the census.

Even with such endeavors, census officials anticipate that, come April 1, nearly one of four people in the United States will not have been counted. It’s then that the hard part starts, as squadrons of census takers begin the laborious chore of calling or visiting residents who have not been caught in the net of the national canvass.

Though the census has climbed ever closer each decade to the magic 100% count of the American populace, the ratio of returned census forms has tumbled, and that means a major expense for the federal government.

In 1970, the first census to make serious use of the U.S. Postal Service, 85% of those who were asked to return the form in the mail did so. Last time, the return rate fell to 83%. Rehearsals for the 1990 count have led census officials to expect a cooperation rate of about 78%.

Federal officials say the census seems to be suffering because of the ever-increasing volume of “junk” mail and a growing mistrust of prying surveys. It’s an expensive trend, because every 1% drop in participation means $5 million to $10 million extra must be spent to hire census-takers.

“We’re going to be busy,” said Joe Montes, a census district manager in Orange County. “We expect perhaps as high as a 30% non-response rate around here. If that figure holds up in our district, it’ll entail sending quite a few enumerators to the households to get the information.”

In Orange County, the bureau has set up four district offices and started hiring temporary employees that by Census Day will number more than 1,000. They’re part of nearly 500,000 workers that will be deployed across the country when the census kicks into high gear in the coming months.

Indeed, local census officials have been preparing as if they were going to war. They have quizzed various city officials to glean “local knowledge” of the communities that may prove most difficult to count. Maps have been drawn up outlining areas that need multilingual census takers or pose an undercount problem.

The district offices have all the glamour of a MASH unit. While the Santa Ana headquarters is in a gleaming office tower, the atmosphere is stark inside. Cardboard desks and filing cabinets are flanked by rows of portable computer terminals, evidence that these are merely temporary quarters designed to be torn down soon after the tally has concluded.

But the work won’t stop when the counting is done. Census employees at the bureau’s national headquarters in Suitland, Md., will be busy crunching numbers and tabulating information for several years. The final tally of the nation’s population and congressional apportionment counts are not even expected until the end of 1990. After those figures are computed, other statistics from the Census Bureau will slowly trickle out between 1991 and 1993.

Some critics complain that the raw census data, which the public can purchase on computer disks or in typewritten form, isn’t available soon enough to stay abreast of some trends, especially in fast-paced locales like Orange County. Moreover, demographers note that the census data rarely produces surprises for them, since most of the statistical blips and bounces of society have been roughly charted all along by less-weighty surveys.

Nonetheless, academic researchers and others are eagerly awaiting the decennial check of the nation’s pulse, noting that it will provide a solid base for future research while buttressing or undermining the predictions of the experts.

“Because the census is so large in scope, it allows us to uncover trends that may not be obvious with samples of 500 to 1,000 residents,” UC Irvine’s Baldassare said.

In Orange County, the census will likely reveal changes that mirror many of those sweeping the United States--a profound ethnic shift led by swelling numbers of Latinos and Asians, a growing polarization of socioeconomic conditions and a shrinking middle class.

But the census should also illuminate demographic tendencies indigenous to the region, such as the increasing tilt of the population toward the fast-growing south, the proliferation of minorities in the north and the ballooning affluence of the coastal strip.

Several life-style changes may also be highlighted. With the skyrocketing cost of housing in Orange County, the census might demonstrate that more adult children are living with their parents, demographers predict. The region’s family fabric might be exposed by census statistics on “blended” households that result when couples divorce and then form anew in subsequent marriages.

But it will likely be the ethnic and racial shifts that garner the most attention, experts say. The Vietnamese community, barely a notch on the charts in 1980 with about 20,000 inhabitants in Orange County, could swell to more than 100,000 with the 1990 census, some experts predict. Latinos are expected to rise from 14.8% of the county’s population in 1980 to about 20% in the coming count, with numbers in excess of 400,000.

“With each census, there’s a certain amount of remaking the image of a community, and Orange County is no different,” said Ken Chew, a demographer at UC Irvine. “It may surprise some people.”

THE NEW CENSUS: Nine key changes for 1990.

For most Orange County residents, the census form that will arrive in late March won’t look very different from its 1980 predecessor. Just like last time, there are the questions on your home and who lives there. But there are also some modest changes since 1980. A few examples of what’s new:

FAMILY

1.New categories for stepson/stepdaughter and grandchild, providing new information on how families separate and form anew.

2. New category for unmarried partner, allowing researchers to count the number of cohabitating couples, both heterosexual and homosexual.

HOUSING

3. Higher dollar figures for home prices. The top bracket in 1980 was “$200,000 or more.” It increases to “$500,000 or more” in the 1990 form, reflecting the soaring price of housing.

4. Rents also went up in the 1980s, and the top rent category doubles from “$500 or more” in 1980 to “$1000 or more” in the 1990 census. 5. Condo fees make their first appearance. Will provide valuable information in Orange County, where one of five dwellings is a single-family attached home. EDUCATION

6. New form asks for the highest grade completed, not just the number of school years attended. It also wants to know about college degrees for the first time.

HEALTH

7. A new question. Asks whether disabled have difficulty going outside the home alone or caring for themselves. Could cast the spotlight anew on the needs of the disabled in Orange County and across the country. COMMUTING 8. Cars and trucks-once individual categories-now lumped together. Category ended with “three or more vehicles” in 1980, but new version was expanded because of prolilferating muticar families. 9. While 1980 census asked how long it took people to get to work, the 1990 form also asks when they leave for work. Should provide valuable information for transportation planners. Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census