If you’re among the Americans who’ve received the U.S. Census Bureau’s supplemental American Community Survey (ACS) in the mail, you may have noticed that your response to the lengthy questionnaire is, uh, mandatory. That’s because the Census Bureau is having trouble convincing people to trust the government with answers to personal questions about how much money they make and what their property is worth. Instead of employing positive reinforcement to entice people to respond to the 30-page document, the Census Bureau opts to “favor the ‘stick’ above [the] ‘carrot’ when mailing out questionnaires,” as Reason’s J.D. Tucille puts it. The Bureau’s Tasha Boone, the survey’s assistant division chief, outlined some of the challenges ACS faces in a recent presentation to the National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations. She lamented in the accompanying document that the public’s “[p]erception of ‘irrelevant’ or unnecessary questions raises concerns about privacy” and that “[d]istrust of government is pervasive.” “Just a thought, but a bit of self-awareness might be lacking in the preference she expressed,” wrote Tucille, “…for the existing [survey mailout] that threatens in bold, capital letters, ‘YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW.’
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 15:52:40 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015