Census Bureau sends letter to tell me that it is sending letter (also, the difference between fair and equal)
I got this letter today from the U.S. Census Bureau. Does every residential mailing address in the country get one of these?
My first thought was about the first bolded sentence that informed me that “About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail.”
Holy crap, are they really spending the money to print and mail these letters to everyone in the country? Is the economy doing great and the Census Bureau has lots of extra cash sitting around? How much does it cost to send every residence in the nation a letter to tell the people living there that another letter is coming in a week? And aren’t people who were likely to ignore the second letter — the actual Census form — likely to not open the letter that I received today? And aren’t people who opened today’s letter just the people who would’ve opened the next one without having to be prepped with the first letter? Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems like a huge waste of money and effort. And yet there are people who trust government to run healthcare efficiently and really believe it when told that costs will come down and this won’t add much to the deficit? Are they high?
My second thought was about the second paragraph, which reads:
Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.
That’s two fair shares in one short paragraph. I assume that this letter is referring to funding that comes from the state or the federal government, since property owners in my community already pay local taxes that fund my child’s school. By “fair share,” this letter does not mean that the government will dole out funds in proportion to the money people paid in income taxes or other taxes, a fair distribution based on what people contributed. This letter is using “fair” to mean “equal.” It means by “fair share” that funding will be based on population size, or “need,” or some combination.
Of course, some people want centralized funding for not only highways and even schools, but also health facilities and “many other programs,” from the state or the feds or both. I don’t know what “many other programs” the Census is going to help fund in my suburban community — is the federal government going to pay for my son’s little league, and if so, can we get a deal on baseball caps if we buy in bulk? Many people are fine with taxing people across the country and state and redirecting the money where it is most needed, defined not just by population size and income, but, since these things are decided by politicians who want votes, defined by loyalty and demographics and whatever group that a politician or political party is trying to woo.
We could have one of those fun arguments about local versus centralized control and decision-making, about the problems with people far away making decisions for other people, about what obligations people in one part of the country or state ought to have to pay for “many other programs” in other parts of the country or state. People would respond predictably, as they usually do when they’ve made up their mind before the argument starts. So maybe the argument wouldn’t be that much fun.
I would hope that we could at least agree that if what people favor is equality — equal funding for schools, equal funding for programs, redistribution of wealth based on Census data — they should use the word they mean. “Equal” is not the same thing as “fair.”
About ten years ago I wrote about “fair” and “equal” and false analogies in the original When Falls the Coliseum. I’ve excerpted most of it below. It references “the surplus” — yes, boys and girls, at one time people were under the impression that there was not a national deficit but a bunch of extra money that the government could spend on more goodies, that government spending and fiscal policy would never catch up with us, that history had ended (this was before 2001) and the economy would roar on forever without a hiccup.
The government was flush with cash, though much of what people called “the surplus” was projected tax revenue years into the future rather than actual money. The government was like those people who thought they were rich because their home values skyrocketed and they borrowed against this value for all sorts of things like expensive cars and vacations and then found out that something being worth a lot on paper doesn’t mean the money will actually be there when you need it. Still, maybe the federal government could have splurged on two hats per kid in little league or something, so some people wanted to spend the surplus rather than cut taxes. The below was originally titled “Let Them Eat (Their Own) Cake”:
David Mitsuo Nixon, of Seattle, had his letter to the editor published in USA Today on October 24, 2000. I have reproduced it here in full, and will make clear just how misleading his argument is at its conclusion:
Tax plan not fair
GOP candidate George W. Bush says his tax plan is fair because it gives all taxpayers a tax cut (‘Bush shifts gears and sharpens attack,’ News, Friday).
I teach practical reasoning at the University of Washington, and have to say that Bush makes a really awful argument.
If I have to divide up a birthday cake among 10 children, and I decide to give one of the kids half the cake, and the others the remaining cake slivers, then all 10 kids will have received some of the cake.
Does that make the distribution of it fair? Obviously not.
There are a number of tax plans that would give tax cuts to all taxpayers — if that is all Bush is worried about.
But not all of these plans are equally fair. Bush chose a plan that gives — according to the Citizens for Tax Justice, a Democrat-leaning group — about $560 billion to the richest people in America.
He could have, for instance, proposed giving those people a mere $1 billion and given the rest of that money to education or the military or health care.
But Bush decided that it was more important to give the money to the rich. I don’t know whether his plan is fair, but it certainly paints a clear picture of his priorities.
– David Mitsuo Nixon, Seattle, Washington
Mr. Nixon should be ashamed of himself. This is a teacher of practical reasoning? His reasoning is practical indeed — so practical, that maybe we shouldn’t call it reasoning at all.
Let’s examine the false analogy:
If I invite children to a party and serve them cake, it is safe to assume that I would try to give somewhat equal portions. After all, they are at the party by my invitation. They are my guests. And they are children, easily upset if they do not get the cake they think they have coming to them.
But what if it isn’t a birthday party? What if the cake is a reward for raking leaves? What if eight of the 10 children didn’t rake the leaves, but chose to watch cartoons instead? Would it be unfair in this scenario for me to give larger portions of the cake to the two children whose hard work deserved rewarding?
Let’s make the analogy fit the reality even more closely: What if two of the children saved up for and purchased the sugar and frosting and other ingredients needed to make the cake? And what if the same two children mixed the ingredients and preheated the oven and watched over the cake while the remaining eight children played outside? Would it be unfair to allow the two children who made the cake’s very existence possible to have most of the cake? What claim do the other children even have to the cake that the two paid for and worked to create?
Is the cake even ours to give? If the two children bought ingredients and prepared the cake, what right do we have to confiscate it from them to give it out to the other eight as we see fit? Because we are adults and they are children, one might say. In other words, because we are big and strong and they are weak. Because we have the power to do so and how can they stop us? Because their money and effort are not theirs, but ours. Because we are bullies. Because children are our slaves, until they become adults.
Analogies only take us so far, and can be used to confuse the real issues. Of course, we are not really talking about cake; we are talking about money. And we are not talking about children; we are talking about adults. Whose money is it? Mr. Nixon pretends that it is America’s money, or the government’s money. But the money in question was not earned by America. And it wasn’t earned by the government. The government does not — and isn’t supposed to — create products or services that generate a profit. There really is no such thing as national wealth. What we call national wealth is just the total wealth of people in a nation. But people talk about the surplus tax money as if it belonged to all of us.
The surplus was earned by individual people, much of it by the very richest people in the country. The federal government taxed them at too high a rate and ended up having more money than it needed for its budget. It already used much of the budgeted money to provide services for people who did not pay for those services. The taxes from families earning $30,000 per year do not cover the services they use. So lots of extra money was taken from those who earn more, to provide police, firefighters, military, and many other essential services for those who do not pay for it. Lots of other non-essential services are also provided to those who do not pay for them, courtesy of the richest. Courtesy is not the right word. The richest have no choice, and must pay for others or face prison.
The wealthy and the very wealthy are not getting government services that equal the taxes they pay. Bill Gates earns much more than I do. He pays much more in taxes than I do. While he might own more land and require more police to protect his property, the amount he pays in taxes is still obscenely high. He might need 10 or even 100 times the services I need (probably not), but he is paying thousands of times more in taxes than I am. He pays for services for himself and thousands of other people who do not pay their own way. Mr. Nixon should thank Bill Gates for paying for services for all those who do not pay for them. Of course, no one thanks Gates or any other rich person. Instead, the wealthy are called greedy by the very people eating the cake the rich made.
When it became clear that the federal government had confiscated through taxes far more money than it needed for its already bloated budget, some of our leaders insisted that the extra money be redistributed fairly to everyone, in the form of many more, even less essential, services. Others have suggested that returning some of that money to the people who earned it is appropriate.
It is time people understood that fair and equal mean different things. In economic terms, fair means that you get as much or as little as you have earned. Equal means that money is taken from those who have earned it and given to those who have not. Mr. Nixon wants everyone to have an equal piece of the cake, no matter what the bakers think.
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To answer your question, I too, received the Census letter today. I actually received 2 of them. Apparently the prior owners of my house must have told them that there was an Apartment 1 and Apartment 2. There is not. There’s a basement, and it used to be a finished basement, before the floods caused damage, but I guess you’d still call it a finished basement, as the bathroom, shower, and kitchen area are still around. Anyway, I suspect that next week I’ll get 2 actual census forms. I’ll return the ‘apt 2′ one with a note that says ‘no apartments – private house’.
BTW, I sure hope they are using pre-paid enveleopes, as I really do not want to spend 88 cents (or more, if the forms weighs too much) to tell them my info.
I guess I’ll find out on Friday, when I go to take the census worker test.
What’s more important is the ‘fair funding’ mentioned in the letter is misleading.
Most federal funding isn’t determined based on population. So the census has little to do with how much federal money your state gets.
Give them the headcount and nothing else!
There are a bazillion lawyers ready to fight this one if the government wants to start fining people $5,000 for not telling them what they want to unconstitutionally find out about you.
Remember, Obama took over the Census and claimed the power to draw up Congressional districts at the same time (1). I’m sorry if some of you want to say I’m pulling on the tin foil hat here, but I don’t trust them not to use the Census information to redraw the Congressional districts to favor Democrats.
They’re politicians. I don’t trust them, regardless of how far I can throw them.
1 – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123423384887066377.html
In general, I agree with your characterization of the distinction between “fair” and “equal” in this post, but I think that you may be focusing unduly on the denotative level of these words and ignoring the context. Also, you have misunderstood the economics of sending the letter.
Let me explain the second part first. The letter was sent because research showed that such letters marginally increase the likelihood that homeowners will fill out their forms, and therefore will not have to be contacted directly by door-to-door workers. In my neighborhood, the latter is the common, as there are many immigrants and refugees who are wary of these initiatives, often because they have experienced oppression overseas that makes American fear of government authority sound like a joke. Anyway, census workers make eighteen bucks an hour, so even a small increase in the percentage of voluntary respondents could save a great deal of money. Your money, by the way.
As to the words “fair” and “equal.” Let’s suppose that the purpose of the letter you received is simple: to get you to fill out your census. That is its entire objective, it’s reason for existing. If that’s true, then the language of the letter ought to communicate that the census helps government work a little better, if only because it provides data on which to make decisions – bear in mind that both federal and local institutions make use of census data. (So do scholars like me, full disclosure.) The alternative would be to not have that data, and make decisions based on wild conjecture.
So does the choice of “fair” instead of “equal” fail to communicate that objective? Not really. I’m pretty sure that readers get the picture. Moreover, the word “fair” is less politically charged than “equal.” Had they chosen the latter, there would have been a leftist tincture to the document, and we’d be complaining about that instead. The word helps the document accomplish its objective, nothing more.
“Is the economy doing great and the Census Bureau has lots of extra cash sitting around?”
The economy is not doing great, but the Census Bureau probably does have lots of extra cash sitting around. Maybe one reason why the economy is not doing great is because the Census Bureau has lots of extra cash sitting around.
They also spent all that money on those really funny commercials– remember those?
Personally, I want my unfair share.
Neil, regarding the economics of the letter, Katherine Mangu-Ward at Reason discusses the same research you mention — she was informed that in the end it saves money the Census Bureau would have spent on workers. Mangu-Ward then sarcastically wonders why, in the age of stimulus and trying to generate jobs, the Census Bureau would bypass the opportunity to create more jobs by sending the letter.
However, my thought on reading your response is that $18 an hour sounds high. How demanding is this work? What kind of extensive training does it require? Is this a job that warrants $18 an hour? Just asking.
The other thing is that, even if the economics work in favor of sending the letter, the PR for the Census Bureau and the government is bad. I think lots of people are going to get that first letter and think it is asinine to send a letter telling people that they are going to get a letter. That was my wife’s initial reaction, and she is not especially political or ideological. It might end up requiring spending less money, but it seems wasteful and pointless to many people, who aren’t reading the research you refer to and don’t see or hear about the overall savings you say this brings.
Last thoughts on the letter and sending out Census workers: How important is it that we get a very accurate count? The Census Bureau says it’s important, but is it? Is funding really based on this count? Paul above says it is not. And if people are too lazy or irresponsible or paranoid to fill out the form, then why are we chasing them to have them counted? Are the numbers of people who don’t send in the forms so large as to affect the general accuracy of the count? We have somewhere between 7-10 million or more illegal immigrants in the country who don’t fill out the forms, right? Or who lie on the form. Or whatever. The point is, we only have loose counts to begin with. We don’t really know how many people are in the country. We establish all sorts of things with computer modeling, approximation, sample surveys, and so on. Couldn’t we get a close enough idea of the number of people in the country without going door-to-door and save a lot of money?
As for the “fair” and “equal” stuff, I get that the Census used “fair share” to motivate people to respond, and that of course they wouldn’t use “equal,” not only because of political implications but because it doesn’t have the moral resonance that “fair” does. I understand the context that you are pointing out and that “fair share” serves the purpose of motivating people to fill out their forms.
But I still object to yet another conflation of “fair” and “equal” and the incremental contribution it makes to the sense of entitlement people have. Using “fair share” twice and putting the fear into residents that the funding they get for programs is at risk if they don’t fill out the form (an implication that Paul above says is false) adds to this notion people have that everything is or should be funded by the federal government and that they are entitled to that funding, because it’s fair.
Mangu-Ward’s comment perplexes me: either you want the government to spend your money hiring workers, or you don’t. Either way, why would anyone want those jobs to be unnecessary? There are plenty of necessary things that need doing, no?
18/hr does sound high, but there are differences from area to area to keep the rate on par with other part-time government work in the locality. No doubt there are some stuffy regulations involved. But bear in mind that this is just part-time temporary work, and has no benefits that I know of.
I couldn’t agree with you more on the tone-deaf PR, though. And as a writer I feel that the double use of “fair share” verges on an abuse of the English language. You can feel a focus group behind that expression, can’t you? It’s like when news anchors say “broken government,” which sounds so juvenile.
Finally, all I’d say about the census is to remember that it is public property. Scholars use it, mayors use it, marketing firms use it, banks use it, school administrators use it, charities use it, policy wonks use it, even the FBI uses it. To reduce its meaning to the mere apportionment of revenue impoverishes the wide utility of this admittedly flawed resource. My only problem is that it is way too 19th century. I’d like to see at experimentation with online submission or alternative data-collection methods. In the long run, that’s what will really save money.