[PRCo] Re: census challenge

[Schneider Fred]

And we used to have a neighbor in Crescent Hills (Penn Hills) who  
moved there from Toledo for the job opportunities that U. S. Steel  
presented down in Homestead.

Politicians will try to boost numbers.   Certainly there is power and  
money based on population.

The primary the census is conducted is to allocate members of the  
House of Representatives.   See article 1, section 2 and amendment 14  
to the U. S. Constitution.  Over the years we have added many other  
functions to it including the distribution of funds to states.

Politicians include, in my mind, people who are friends or supports  
of certain groups.

Ministers often over count the number in church on Sunday.

I've seen people quoted telling me the drain from Pittsburgh is  
over.   Then I went to google and tried to see if I could find school  
enrollment data for Pittsbugh City Schools ... bigger drops than  
ever.   Am I to believe they are all going to private schools at a  
time when everybody is running out of money?   I don't think so.    
I'll willing to believe Pittsburgh will have fewer than 300,000 in  
the 2010 census.

My absolutely favorite story came from a man who worked for the state  
employment service in Lancaster and who was a self-proclaimed  
defender of all the Puerto Ricans in town.  Now you understand there  
is always safety in huge numbers.   So Benny was trying to convince  
us all that there were 10,000 Spanish people in Lancaster.   I  
studied it using school enrollment data linked to national population  
ratios and told him my best guess was 2,000 to 2,500.   He fought  
like a stuck pig.   He told me he had counted all the power records  
and phone records and these records and those records.   I said,  
"What'ja do Benny, add them all together and count each person five  
times?"  He screamed louder.  A few weeks later the 1970 census came  
out ... 2,075.   He proclaimed it was absolutely wrong.  "They didn't  
how to count."   Eventually he made so much noise that ... well ... I  
think he might have been asked if he could find some place else to  
hang his hat.   Two people disappeared.   He and his girl friend in  
the office went to Puerto Rico to live.

I can strongly suggest that the sum of local school board censuses  
done every year for taxation purposes will produce a county estimate  
more accurate than any estimate the U. S. Census Bureau can do during  
an intercensal period.    The U. S. government can get a pretty good  
start on a national intercensal number by taking the last census and  
adding births, subtracting deaths, adding legal immigration,  
subtracting legal out migration.   But how do they handle those  
people who simply walk across the border?   And when it comes down to  
dividing their number into states and cities, how does the federal  
government know where to put the people?   Are they using the trends  
of the past years?   Are they using local census data and wedging  
them into the national estimates?   I don't know.

I think what we can admit to is that the ten year census is probably  
as good today as it was in 1900 or 1800 and the weaknesses are  
greatest in the largest cities and among people who don't wish to be  
counted ... that has never changed.   If there is a black family in  
Kittanning, Pennsylvania, they cannot hide from the census.   But  
such a family in Philadelphia can easily hide.   A homeless family in  
Peters Township, Washington County cannot hide but the same family  
can hide on Herron Hill or Homewood.   So the accuracy is greatest in  
small towns and worst in big cities.   It has always been that way.


On Jan 15, 2009, at 1:11 PM, Dennis Fred Cramer wrote:

> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09015/941878-85.stm
> Pittsburgh has now dropped to below Toledo, OH according to the  
> latest census estimates.  Obviously every political entity will do  
> what they can to boost numbers before the 2010 census.  Too much  
> money and political power is in the balance.
>
> This means the city is now #60 on the chart.
>
> http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/09s0026.pdf
>
> Dennis F. Cramer
>       Trombone
>