
U.S. Census director resigns amid turmoil over funding of 2020 count - petethomas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/us-census-director-resigns-amid-turmoil-over-funding-of-2020-count/2017/05/09/8f8657c6-34ea-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html
======
DannyBee
It's funny how easy people think this is.

Yes it's "just a data collection app".

You're talking about an org that, if your address is in the middle of a swamp,
they will send someone by boat to find you.

They take collection and processing _very seriously_.

If you gave a startup 200 million or whatever, you'd have a pretty accurate
census of internet connected people in the top 20 cities in the US. Oh, and a
declaration of victory from the startup, plus 300 billion in market cap in the
hope that they may actually be able to count everyone someday!

Somehow, i doubt you'd come up with something that can collect data well, know
where to be focusing field representatives, etc with 600k+ field
representatives in a reasonable and efficient manner.

Has anyone here tried to organize people,targets, and data in say a company
twice the size of all of IBM? How did that go? :)

(the census is honestly relatively cheap. it costs about 50 bucks per person,
total. Obviously, counting rural, etc areas is the majority of the cost)

The 2020 Census is going to be weird, too. Disadvantaged minorities, etc are
statistically less likely to be counted[1], and especially given the climate
in the US, counting immigrants is going to be especially hard.

[1] Which is why in the US, they democrats often try to pass rules around
using statistical methods, and the republicans claim it requires actual
enumeration

~~~
Futurebot
The view of how much money this actually is is seriously skewed in these
comments. US GDP is around $19 trillion. The cost of this program is 0.1% of
GDP. For comparison, the B2 bomber cost $2.4B itself, and the Iraq was cost
upwards of $12B a month. One can argue "we shouldn't spend on those either"
(and I agree), but it's impossible to cogently argue that this is a lot of
money. Like the budgets of the NEA and many other very cheap programs, it's an
absolute pittance. A pittance.

~~~
supergarfield
0.1% of GDP is actually fairly large. In isolation it's fine, but government
probably have dozens or hundreds of similar "small" programs we never think
about. So sure, wars cost a lot more money, but running a hundred programs
that each cost you 2 billion dollars will also be very expensive.

Not fundamentally disagreeing, I just think it's easy to miss the full picture
if you conclude that 0.1% of GDP is negligible.

~~~
jaquers
Your parent was off by an order of magnitude: $2B / $19,000B == 0.01%

Agree with both points, 0.1% is not nothing - that's what NASA scrapes by on.
FWIW, the article mentions a ramp up in spending going up to the census year -
so I take it that this is not an annual cost.

------
John23832
Troubled funding for the census leads to easier gerrymandering.

Today had been full of surprises.

~~~
Spooky23
That's the Trump MO. They drop something big like the FBI director that they
have in the bullpen to overshadow another turd like this.

Underfunding the census directly hurts the democrats, as urban areas always
need more human outreach than the burbs, whose residents dutifully fill out
their surveys.

It's not just gerrymandering, its outright warfare. Census numbers drive
things like sales tax distribution, school aid, and local government aid too.
The strategy here is to starve out democratic strongholds.

~~~
zanny
There have been confessions dating back to the Nixon administration of war
like tactics to directly harm the democratic base (and plenty more before
him). It is not new, they can just be more blatant the more drawn the partisan
lines are into independent isolated silos.

After all, what are republicans distraught by this behavior going to do? Side
with the _enemy_ , whose ideals their culture have defined as not just wrong
but evil? Or in the inverse, is a liberal dissatisfied with the democrats
behavior going to side with those whom the left deem imbeciles and tyrants?

We saw in this last election what voter disdain in the major parties causes. A
bunch of third party votes, some minor protests that the media systemically
silenced or condemned, that still pale next to the structural rigidity of
first past the post and a firmly established ideological divide meant to keep
the poor fighting amongst themselves.

------
iloveluce
A bit unrelated but the US Census should really work with the US Postal
Service when performing the census. It would save the Census bureau some money
and would provide the Postal Service with an additional source of funding.

~~~
yellowbkpk
US Census can't really work with anyone when it comes to their data. They take
their responsibilities under Title 13 [0] (which prohibits them from sharing
information they collect) very seriously.

They're trying various options to share some limited data (like address data)
[1], but haven't gotten very far. They've done some work on "Community TIGER"
[2], which aims to give validation information back to local governments for
geographic data, but not the improvements that Census generates as part of the
decennial census.

The US Postal Service has no motive to share with the Census Bureau. For one
thing, the USPS makes all of its money selling limited access to its address
list to advertisers. Additionally, the USPS's address list (or delivery
points) doesn't necessarily correspond with people and where they live.

PS: I'm interested in this sort of thing because I help run OpenAddresses [3],
a community-built list of authoritative address data sources from around the
world. There's a lot of data out there!

[0]
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/13/9](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/13/9)
[1] [https://fcw.com/articles/2011/09/14/census-bureau-
title-13.a...](https://fcw.com/articles/2011/09/14/census-bureau-
title-13.aspx) [2]
[https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/gssi/Community_TIGER.pdf](https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/gssi/Community_TIGER.pdf)
[3] [https://openaddresses.io/](https://openaddresses.io/)

~~~
knz
I used to be GIS Coordinator for a medium size municipality. The Census Bureau
sent out DVD's of address points for the 2010 count for cities to validate.
There was some collaboration between cities, USPS, and Census on it but as you
likely know address standards are a mess in the US. Many states have efforts
to standardize but it's often difficult because addressing is left to the
municipality and often falls to a non GIS person (city planner, building
inspector etc) who has little concept of normalization or why it's a bad idea
to create addresses that are difficult for a computer to understand.

Openaddresses.io is an awesome project, as a GIS professional thank you! This
type of data can be immensely useful!

~~~
secabeen
Our of curiosity, what sorts of addresses are ones that are difficult for a
computer to understand?

~~~
knz
It's almost always just a geocoding/data format issue. It's machine readable
but you can get quirks when an address is something like "1 1/2 Hacker Street"
\- is that "1.5 Hacker Street", "Unit 1 1/2 Hacker Street", "1 Hacker Street,
Unit 1 of 2" etc. It might not be a problem if you are dealing with a small
discrete area but when you are trying to merge multiple areas it can be a
challenge.

Then you have situations where a street name is the same as the region/state
(is the source data just missing attributes?), confusion about the direction
prefix/suffix (1 W Hacker Street, 1 Hacker Street W - can vary within the same
city on the same street), poorly named streets like "1 W Hacker Street East or
"1 Hacker Street East W", or street name types that are not commonly used (1
Hacker Launch Pad etc).

It's even more fun when you start talking about countries that either use
older addressing formats (I've seen addresses in Ireland that are just like
(Old Blue Cottage, Some Town) or are not in english.

There are many more situations, these are just what immediately come to mind.

------
froindt
I'm curious what caused the cost of the new electronic system to increase so
much. I understand there could be a lot to it on the back end to ensure
privacy and anonymity of the data collected, but it doesn't seem like it
should be a huge deal technically. We're talking about ~325 million people and
collecting demographic info and address info [1]. The IRS has far far more
variables to collect info on, however they have fewer people. 325 million
people is nothing compared to scaled companies like Facebook, Amazon, or
Google (far more data points per person, far more people).

Any speculation on cause or other considerations I'm missing? Did a quick
search on Google News and didn't find anything. All the companies I listed
have huge teams, but I am still not seeing how the cost has exploded.

[https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/2010questionnaire.pdf](https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/2010questionnaire.pdf)

~~~
drc500free
Pointing to the highest performing companies that have been selected by the
market is not really a fair comparison for a government agency.

It's more relevant to look at what a median tech company would end up doing,
if they had to launch at scale without organic growth but had unlimited
funding.

~~~
jonnathanson
Totally fair, but to play devil's advocate for a split second, let's not
forget that the Census Dept has to make people aware of itself and get people
to give their info willingly and within timelines, given no real incentive to
do so.

Facebook, Amazon, and Google are collecting info that is willingly passed
their way.

We are probably talking about buying data entry and management bloatware from
a big mediocre enterprise contractor and then integrating the monstrosity.

~~~
drc500free
Totally agree... Private sector just isn't going to serve people with a
negative ROI and stay in business. Facebook's costs would skyrocket if they
had to chase down the last 10-20% of the population necessary for
comprehensive coverage.

These are all structural issues with solving the problem, before we even get
to a procurement process that picks a mediocre LPTA contractor instead of
Google.

------
jssmith
My guess is that the contract under scrutiny to the RFP COMM-16-BC-2020. Here
are the services to be provided:

    
    
      - Research and Data Analytics
      - Strategic Planning, Program Development, and Integration
      - Communications Support for Decennial Census Operations and Other Programs
      - Field Recruitment Advertising and Communications
      - Traditional Advertising and Media Buying
      - Digital Advertising and Other Communications Technologies
      - Social Media
      - Public Relations
      - Communications Planning and Materials for the Partnership Program
      - Statistics in Schools Program
      - Website Development and Digital Engagement
      - Rapid Response Activities
      - Project and Financial Management
      - Stakeholders Relations
      - Communications Support for the 2020 Census Data Dissemination
    

The scope here is pretty large and it includes advertising, etc., so one can
see how it might cost hundreds of millions. It isn't just about setting up a
database and running a web site.

Full document is here:

ftp://ftp.census.gov/about/business-opportunities/2020-comm-final-
rfp-1-21-16.pdf

~~~
magila
That sounds like it covers just about everything you would reasonably expect
to be part of the preparations for the census. Which raises the question,
what's the other $2 billion of the bureau's budget over the next two years
being spent on?

~~~
secabeen
Continuing to run the other ongoing projects that the census does, like the
American Community Survey.

------
coldcode
Maybe they could just eliminate the census entirely and just have Congress
pick whatever numbers they want. That would save a lot of money. \s

~~~
gavinpc
I know you're joking, but for those who may not be familiar, the Census is
mandated explicitly by the Constitution. So that would require a
constitutional amendment.

------
vtange
This is something to keep an eye on, given the fact that Congressional
district borders will be drawn using 2020 data.

~~~
harryh
Seats in the house of representatives are allocated based on census data.
District borders can be drawn based on whatever data state governments want.

------
eric_b
650 million dollars to tally some simple demographic information? I understand
there is always more to the story - but this doesn't pass the smell test.
Additionally, what does the Census Bureau need 1.5 billion for on a non-census
year?

I don't mean that rhetorically - 1.5 billion a year pays 15,000 people an
annual salary of 100k. Where is that money going?

~~~
skybrian
"Most recently, Census 2010 employed 635,000."

[https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/...](https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/how_many_census_takers_are_needed_to_conduct_the_census.html)

~~~
magila
That's during the census itself, which is still three years away. The funding
in question is just to develop the infrastructure to record the data.

------
kbd
> And it comes less than a week after a prickly hearing at which Thompson told
> lawmakers that cost estimates for a new electronic data collection system
> had ballooned by nearly 50 percent.

I'd love to know the details of that project overrun.

~~~
maxlybbert
Honestly, so would I. I took a project management class in college, and many
of the examples were NASA projects because they were sexy. Sadly, I don't
remember any case studies referring to project overruns. And, seriously, if
you're looking at NASA projects, you shouldn't have trouble finding examples
that went over budget or didn't make the deadline.

There are good lessons to learn from less-successful cases.

------
xname2
Should the new electronic system really cost that much? Do they work with the
SV, or will they just give the project to a terrible contractor like the
health insurance exchange market?

------
throwaway5752
It's ridiculous this is the top trending submission when the president fired
the FBI director that was investigating his ties to Russia. If political
stories are fair game, this is important but a rounding error next to Comey.

@dang, the HN ranking system is so trivially hackable via downvotes and flags
by a motivated minority.

~~~
dang
Neither story is a good fit for HN. HN is for the gratification of
intellectual curiosity, not the other more intense forms of curiosity (or
gratification). Like most political stories, these fall out of HN's scope.

> _so trivially hackable_

That's a misunderstanding of how HN's system works. Hot political stories
typically get tons of upvotes. That happens first. Then they get flagged
and/or moderators penalize them. That's routine, and it's what happened to
both of these submissions—the only difference was the several hours' gap
between them.

~~~
hackuser
There _seems_ to be a wide variance in the way political stories are handled;
for example, political issues not involving Trump _seem_ more accepted. I
suppose consistency in this matter isn't that important, except that it's a
bit frustrating to spend time on comments or submissions that are
(effectively) solicited, and then have them (effectively) discarded. It would
be helpful if the standards were explained in a little more detail, perhaps in
the Guidelines (so people can find them), so we know what to expect. As I said
in another comment, I feel like I'm trying to reverse engineer your policies
and intentions.

While personally I wish there were more political issues discussed
intelligently on HN - we shouldn't imagine that we live in an enclave safe
from the very serious political situation - I will say that the recent
discussions have been the most uninformative, valueless, wastes of my time
that I've seen on HN in a long while. It's not hopeless; around the time of
Trump's travel orders, for example, they seemed much better (and were allowed
on the front page).

~~~
dang
A lot of this is probably random. The system has a wide range of fluctuation,
and trying to pin that down, clean it up, or make it consistent would likely
just generate more noise.

------
3131s
The should do the census and register Americans to vote in the same process.

------
Rapzid
1bn is a bit much for a CRUD app... I'm exaggerating of course, but I believe
not as much as they are on the costs..

~~~
ethbro
$10k for the app, $250m for the IBM hardware, $350m for the IBM support
contract, and $399,990,000 set aside for legal defense when the government
decides what they spec'd wasn't what they needed and sues the contractor.

------
swanson
Odds that Facebook ends up doing a privatized 2020 census?

~~~
kirykl
Making all US Citizens legally obligated to have Facebook account

~~~
EGreg
What would happen if Twitter banned Donald Trump for a tweet? Could he compel
them to reinstate him?

~~~
sp332
No. 10th Amendment.

------
jtedward
The above comment is an excellent example of political gaslighting, there is
ample, undeniable evidence of some sort of GOP collision with Russia. No sane
person looking at the evidence could come to any other conclusion, but by
confidently stating the exact opposite of the truth the above commenter seeks
to sow doubt in the mind of a potentially disinterested or confused audience.
This is a an increasingly common tactic on these boards.

~~~
dang
Please don't post like this to HN. It falls into the category of insinuating
astroturfing/shillage by other users, which (unless you have evidence) is a
breach of civility that is not allowed on HN. Someone holding an opposing
opinion isn't evidence.

The "you must be a shill/troll/spy because of what you say" argument is
common, toxic, and false. People need to abstain from it in this corner of the
internet.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14305376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14305376)
and marked it off-topic.

------
perseusprime11
Can we use Machine learning to predict 2020 count? Do we really need to
manually count?

------
pdog
Why hire nearly a million temporary census takers[1] every ten years? Even
private companies have databases with far more detailed and more frequent
demographic and psychographic information on every person in the United
States.

[1]:
[https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/...](https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/how_many_census_takers_are_needed_to_conduct_the_census.html)

~~~
GavinMcG
Well we need _some_ independent way to regularly reapportion representatives,
if we're going to stick with a system of geographically-based representation.

~~~
GavinMcG
Also, if you're suggesting that we don't need to literally go door-to-door
counting people, you're not alone. Many people argue that statistics will give
us a better measure than one that has the flaws of in-person data collection.

The problem is that the U.S. Constitution says the following:

> which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons,
> including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians
> not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall
> be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the
> United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner
> as they shall by Law direct.

The key word is _Enumeration_. That arguably means counting, one-by-one,
rather than making a statistical estimation.

------
pfarnsworth
Honestly, why is it so expensive? If you created a startup with $50 Million,
and gave them 4 years to implement this system, I'm sure it would be done much
more efficiently. Then you "buy" the startup for $200 Million at the end of
it, and all the employees get a nice payout.

~~~
s73ver
What's more likely is that the founders and investors would take the payout,
and the workers would get nothing.

And I extremely doubt the ability of a startup to do any kind of worthwhile
count of people outside of major metropolitan areas.

~~~
ceejayoz
"We counted the Bay Area and NYC, that's enough, right?"

