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â8â The Burdens of the ACS, and Closing Discussion As described in Section 1âA, the Workshop on the Benefits (and Burdens) of the American Community Survey (ACS) sought to emphasize the benefits of the ACS to a wide array of data users while also giving its burdensâits chal- lenges and drawbacksâan honest and appropriate airing. The workshop presen- tations and discussions summarized in previous chapters reflect different aspects of burden, including the relative disadvantage rural areas confront in access to and accuracy of ACS estimates compared to more populous areas (Sections 5âB and 6âA), questions and concepts that do not completely mesh with pressing policy interests (Section 2âA), and restrictive data embargo protocols that can hinder the work of groups serving as âinterpretersâ of the data (Section 3âB). In addition to burden-related material in these and other individual presentations, the workshop steering committee devoted a separate session to issues of bur- den, assembling a small group to speak about a selection of important aspects or components of burden: ⢠The workshop was intended to focus on nonfederal users of ACS data, and so no speakers or applications from the federal executive agencies were in- cluded in the workshop program. Yet a major âburdenâ associated with the ACS is that it needs to fill the role of the previous census long-form-sample data in informing general policy. The committee felt that the U.S. Govern- ment Accountability Office (GAO) is uniquely positioned to speak to the application of ACS data to the full sweep of policy decisions and could also speak to the potential costs and benefits of a voluntary ACS. Ron 145
146 BENEFITS, BURDENS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY Fecso summarized GAO perspectives on behalf of himself and GAO se- nior analyst Kathleen Padulchick (Section 8âA). ⢠Relatedly, and extending themes raised during the state, local, and tribal perspectives session (Chapter 5), the committee sought someone to speak about the challenges of communicating estimates, and uncertainty, to state and local decision makers. Accordingly, Warren Brown (Cornell Univer- sity) discussed examples from his time as state demographer in Georgia (Section 8âB). ⢠As touched on in the newly swirling legislative discussion of a voluntary ACS (Section 1âB), the ACS is continually open to criticism along pri- vacy and confidentiality lines; some questions on the surveyâsuch as the presence or absence of a flush toilet in the housing unit or what time each person leaves home for workâare routinely challenged as being in- trusive or tantamount to identity theft. Hence, the committee asked Barry Steinhardt (former associate director of the American Civil Lib- erties Union) for perspectives on how one privacy rights advocate reads the ACS (Section 8âC). ⢠Michigan state demographer Kenneth Darga was asked to comment on the respondent burden issues associated with the ACSâhow long it takes to complete the questionnaire, whether the resulting information and data justify the âimpositionâ of the survey on a large annual sample, andâ consistent with the new debateâhow response to the ACS might change if the survey were made voluntary (Section 8âD). ⢠Finally, the committee asked longtime demographic consultant Stephen Tordella to play devilâs advocateâto get a sense of and comment on the general complaints and concerns about the ACS and its content raised by respondents in the public, and how those complaints are registered with decision makers (Section 8âE). At the workshop, each of the speakers gave a short opening statement before the floor was opened up to discussion; that round of questions and answers is summarized in Section 8âF. This chapter is also an appropriate point to summarize the brief period of closing discussion for the workshop. The workshop steering committee invited Steve Murdock (Rice University)âformer director of the U.S. Census Bureau and former Texas state demographerâto wrap up the workshop with brief re- marks on what he heard at the workshop and on the prospects of the ACS. This discussion is summarized in Section 8âG.
THE BURDENS OF THE ACS, AND CLOSING DISCUSSION 147 8âA MAINTAINING RELIABLE INFORMATION FOR POLICY ASSESSMENTS Ron Fecso (U.S. Government Accountability Office [GAO], on behalf of himself and Kathleen Padulchick) began with a short introduction of GAOâs role as an investigative arm of the legislative branch. Formerly known as the General Accounting Office, GAOâs name was changed about 10 years ago to reflect that the core of its work had changed from primarily auditing programs to evaluating them, across many dimensions. Most of GAOâs studies are done at the request of Congressâoften 800 or more jobs a year, but Fecso said that the office is also uniquely positioned to occasionally scan the environment and inform Congress of developments and trends that it should know aboutââand the ACS, believe me, is one where we try to get their ear as often as we can.â Fecso reiterated that the basic goal of GAO is to provide Congress with in- formation that is âobjective, fact-based, non-partisanâââtotally nonpoliticalââ and that, as a result, GAO is extremely serious about the quality of the data that it uses in its reports. Though it most often relies on already available data, GAO will occasionally conduct its own data collections as studies warrant, including surveys of local governments and school systems, but it is not equipped for do- ing big population surveys. Fecso said that GAO makes a point of conducting a data reliability assessment on data sources available to it, be they public- or private-sector-generated sources, and that this assessment includes such factors as the competence of the source, the reasonableness of the resulting estimates, and the soundness of the methodology. If the data do not meet GAOâs stan- dards, âwe cannot use them.â One concern as the ACS was launched was whether the estimates from the survey could satisfy all the functions and demands then placed on estimates from decennial census long-form samples. Fecso said that the breadth of applications to which GAO has used the ACS (after satisfying itself of the ACSâs fitness to the task) testifies to the fact that the ACS has proven itself a desirable replacement. Some of these wide-ranging applications of the ACS in GAO studies (with their GAO report number, to facilitate easy reference to the studies at http://www. gao.gov) are: ⢠Study of veteransâ housing characteristics and the affordability of rental housing among low-income veterans (GAO-07-1012); ACS data revealed a surprisingly large group of veteran renter households with low incomes (about 2.3 million) but ultimately suggested thatâat the timeâveterans were not significantly different from nonveteran renter households in hav- ing problems affording housing. ⢠Study of differences in educational attainment and income among detailed Asian and Pacific Islander demographic subgroups (GAO-07-925); ACS data suggested, for instance, higher propensity for Asian Indians and Chi-
148 BENEFITS, BURDENS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY nese persons in the United States to hold college degrees than other sub- groups like Vietnamese and Native Hawaiians. ⢠Evaluation of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the pos- sible financial impact of changes in policy and premium rates (GAO-09- 20); in this case, ACS data on such variables as median household income and median value of owner-occupied homes were used to target a sample of counties for intensive case-study analysisâsomewhat similar to AIR Worldwideâs use of ACS data to characterize areas and properties at risk of catastrophes (see Section 6âE). ⢠Comparison of alternative methodologies for allocating grant monies for vocational rehabilitation programs across the states (GAO-09-798); the ACS data proved ideal for the analysis not only for its detailed informa- tion on a wide variety of disabilitiesâdisability rates being a key factor in the need for vocational rehabilitation programsâbut also its coverage of the nonhousehold âgroup quartersâ population, including people living in group homes or specific rehabilitation facilities. ⢠Assessment of the possible relationship between limited English profi- ciency and financial literacy, or awareness of consumer finance issues (GAO-10-518); while the study required external data (besides the ACS) for the financial literacy component, GAO appreciated that the multiple questions on the ACS gave it great flexibility in defining and construct- ing its own standard definitions of âlimited English proficiencyâ for small areas. ⢠Description of the characteristics of women in managerial positions in the workplace (GAO-10-892R); in a 2010 update of a report originally done in 2001 using Current Population Survey (CPS) data, GAO was able to use ACS data to examine pay and demographic differences between women and men in management positionsâfor a wider range of industries than was possible with the CPS data. ⢠Profiling the demographic and economic characteristics of one extremely specific industry, people working in early child care and education (GAO- 12-248); among the interesting findings, about 93 percent of the workers in this field who have a bachelorâs degree do not have a degree specifically in early childhood education. Fecso noted that GAO has occasionally been called upon to examine and advise upon technical aspects of the ACS. GAOâs legal staff was asked by Mem- bers of Congress to render an opinion on the legal justification for the ACS, and their resulting memo (GAO report B-289852) is still an important part of the ongoing voluntary-versus-mandatory-response debate because GAO concurred that the Census Bureau has the legal authority to make the ACS mandatory. In 2002, GAOâs The American Community Survey: Accuracy and Timeliness Issues
THE BURDENS OF THE ACS, AND CLOSING DISCUSSION 149 (GAO-02-956R) forecast the decline in response rateâand with it the decline in accuracyâthat could accompany a switch from mandatory to voluntary ACS collection. Most recently, earlier in 2012, GAO issued a report looking at the whole portfolio of federal household surveys and the role of the ACS, making the case that the ACS was successfully able to add a question on field of degree that permits the ACS to serve as the sampling basis for the National Science Foundationâs National Survey of College Graduates but thatâlarge though it isâthe ACSâs current sample size is too small for it to be piggybacked upon for other follow-up survey designs. Fecso closed by offering brief comments on general ACS issues. He re- iterated his, and GAOâs, concern that a switch to voluntary collection could degrade the quality of the ACS estimates. Additional fundingâand additional sample unitsâcould get around the basic problem of a lower initial sample size, but he said that he would still be very worried about the biases that might be introduced by nonresponse. He acknowledged that the ACS does genuinely in- cur burdens as well as benefitsâit can be a lengthy questionnaire to complete, and it can be a challenge to communicate. That said, he expressed hope that communication and education could provide reassurance to ACS respondents, first that only a very small percentage of the population receives the survey and, second, that completing the survey is positive civic participation (rather than rote civic duty). He said that he appreciates the privacy and confidentiality con- cerns associated with the survey, and the arguments about the questions being overly intrusive, butâin his assessmentâthe wealth of information that those seemingly invasive questions can provide outweighs the burden. To that extent, he said (similar to Terri Ann Lowenthalâs discussion in Section 7âD) that con- crete, accessible examples of ACS like those at the workshop should really be developed and spread around to bolster the case for the survey. 8âB TRADEOFFS: USING A FEDERAL SURVEY TO DRIVE STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT DECISIONS Warren Brown (Cornell University) began his remarks by commenting that a frequently raised argument in favor of the ACSânot one dwelt upon at all in this workshop, but invoked in other settingsâis that it is essential to the federal government and specifically to the distribution of more than $450 bil- lion of federal funds. Importantâand trueâthough this might be, Brown said that he recognized that this argument is not very persuasive in some cir- cles: There are those âwho would like to kill the beastâ altogether and feel strongly that such large sums should not be collected and redistributed in the first place. That said, he argued, there is a legitimate question underlying this counterargumentâwhat are the proper roles of and relationships between fed- eral and state governments?âin light of which it is useful to consider the role
150 BENEFITS, BURDENS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY of federally collected data like the ACS. âEven if we went back to the Arti- cles of Confederationââweak federal government and strong state and local governmentsâBrown argued that it would still be incumbent on the state and local governments to provide some services to their populations; would it or would it not be short-sighted to shun a federally collected data collection that provides detailed information on all states and localities? Brown continued that he wanted to use his time to talk about the uses of ACS data by state and local governments in addressing the needs of their residentsâand, in that light, the burdens that the ACS in its present form cre- ates for state and local users. He said that the basic point he wanted to express is that the ACS creates tradeoffs for usersâfix or relieve one burden, create or ex- acerbate anotherâand he said that he would briefly illustrate his point through an example of work done with the Georgia Division of Aging Services, during his 3-year period at the University of Georgia as state demographer. Over his 35-year career, Brown said that his role has been to serve as a âdata intermediaryââmaking the data from statistical agencies more useful to ana- lysts, policy makers, and general staff members of state and local governments. In that capacity, he said that he has heardâextensivelyâ-complaints about the inadequacies and burdens of government statistics. In the days of the decennial census long-form sample, the recurring complaint was that the data are so out of date as to be useless. When the ACS came online, the complaints changed dramatically. Some challenged the sheer volume of the data and found it to be almost too timelyâthe thrust of the complaint being that âthis flow of in- formation is overwhelming.â Others found more subtle, technical grounds for complaints; officials from small-population areas with significant group quarters populations (e.g., prisons, college dormitories, nursing homes) critiqued the âer- ratic and inaccurateâ nature of the ACS group quarters data.1 Significantly, state and local government users also complained about the burdens of interpreting multiyear period estimates relative to the point-in-time estimates of the old long form and of grappling with more prominent margins of error; so many state and local programs have specific cutoffs or thresholds that estimates that look like they are bouncing above and below those thresholds are highly disconcerting. With that as context, he moved to the example. The Georgia Division of Aging Services administers a variety of programs to deliver services to the el- derly, to persons with disabilities, and specifically to military veterans with disabilitiesâthe central objective of which is to enable people who wish to re- main in their own homes (without having to be institutionalized) to do so. Con- sequently, the division has to coordinate extensively with a variety of service providers, to streamline delivery approaches so that the maximum of services 1 To that end, Brown held up a copy ofâand commendedâthe recent National Research Coun- cil (2012) report on measuring the group quarters population in the ACS for offering recommenda- tions on resolving these problems.
THE BURDENS OF THE ACS, AND CLOSING DISCUSSION 151 a Figure 8-1 Veterans by service-connected disability rating, Georgia, 2008â2010 SOURCE: American Community Survey, 2008â2010, Table B21100; adapted from workshop presentation by Warren Brown. can be provided with a minimum of costââa laudable goal,â Brown said, and undoubtedly one that is replicated by similar agencies in other states as well. When the Division of Aging Services came to him with a problem, Brown emphasized that they did so with tabulations in hand: âThey used data from the American Community Survey; I didnât bring this data to them,â or have to bring it to them. The heart of the problem is that one specific question on the ACS makes it, seemingly, ideal for the divisionâs purposes. The U.S. Depart- ment of Veterans Affairs assigns service-connected disability ratingsâexpressed as a percentage in the sequence 0, 10, 20, through 100 percentâto affected vet- erans, and the ACS asks about those disability ratings.2 To their thinking, the division hoped that the ACS would be able to provide them âstatistically reli- able information to provide more accurate assessments,â Brown said; it seemed as though the ACS would be a very valuable tool in generating regional esti- mates of current and anticipated demand for services specifically aimed at vet- erans with disabilities. Indeed, Brown said, the division had used the ACS to explore the age of veterans, their living conditions, and their military serviceâ all information collected in the ACS. Figure 8-1 displays the estimatesâand the upper and lower confidence limits 2 Person Question 28a on the 2012 questionnaire asks âDoes this person have a VA service- connected disability rating?â If the answer is âYes (such as 0%, 10%, 20%, . . . , 100%),â then the respondent is asked to report the rating using the five categories implied in Figures 8-1 and 8-2: â0 percent,â â10 or 20 percent,â â30 or 40 percent,â â50 or 60 percent,â or â70 percent or higher.â
152 BENEFITS, BURDENS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY on those estimates, shown as red barsâfor the service-connected disability rat- ing question, based on 3-year ACS data (2008â2010) for the state of Georgia as a whole. The confidence bands are quite tightââbut we donât deliver the program at the state level.â Instead, the program for outreach to veterans with disabilities is administered through regional offices for the aging, so there is a need to drill down to finer levels of geography. The top graph in Figure 8-2 shows the same service-connected disability es- timates (again from 2008â2010 ACS data) for the largest geographic subpopu- lation in the state: the Atlanta metropolitan area, in which over half of Geor- giaâs total population resides. Looking at the graph, Brown said, âyou can do some program planning at that levelâââthe confidence limits are still pretty ac- ceptable,â and there is still some clear separation in group sizes between the extremes of disability rating groups. But the bottom graph shows the results for the Macon metropolitan areaâânot a small population,â at around 250,000 total population, roughly 17,5000 veterans in total, and about 2,300 of those having a service-connected disability rating. And, there, the division came to Brown, wondering what to do. The confidence limits widen a great deal and, from this picture, Brown said that âit is difficult to justify how many persons in needâ of the veteran-specific services are in the Macon area. Yet âthis is the only information they have, to set those kinds of planning objectives.â Brown closed by arguing that what is needed for effective programming in state and local government programs is âreliable, consistent, accurate, precise estimates, as best we can get them.â Brown said that the example of the disabled veterans brings home to him that the ACS creates, and will continue to create, tradeoffs. Making responses voluntary might benefit the privacy of individual responses, but the resulting diminution of the sample size could hurt the accu- racy of estimates. Brown said that his worry is that these shifts in quality might disproportionately âcreate tangible negative consequences for some of our most vulnerable residents: youth, the elderly, and disabled veterans.â 8âC INTRUSIVENESS AND PRIVACY CONCERNS Barry Steinhardt (Friends of Privacy USA) opened his comments with an important disclaimer; some people in the workshop know him from his lengthy career with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and, in particular, from his service as ACLUâs representative to the Census Advisory Commit- tee. However, he emphasized that he does not represent or speak for the ACLU today. What he said he does speak from is the perspective of a long-time ob- server of the intersection between the census and privacy and confidentiality issuesâin which capacity he asked to start by stating his âincredible respectâ for the Census Bureauâs privacy safeguards. In his assessment, the Census Bureau is the federal government agency with the most effective program for âprotect-
THE BURDENS OF THE ACS, AND CLOSING DISCUSSION 153 Atlanta, Georgia a Macon, Georgia a Figure 8-2 Veterans by service-connected disability rating, Atlanta and Macon, Georgia, metropolitan areas, 2008â2010 SOURCE: American Community Survey, 2008â2010, Table B21100; adapted from workshop presentation by Warren Brown.
154 BENEFITS, BURDENS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY ing the privacy of the respondents and the integrity and the privacy of the data that it receives.â Steinhardt added that he currently sits on the Privacy Advi- sory Committee of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and that âthey largely roll their eyes when I set the Census Bureau as a modelâ for DHS to follow; still, he finds the contrast between the Census Bureau and DHS in terms of privacy protection to be remarkable. Steinhardt also stated his conclusion that âit is very difficult and nearly im- possible to glean personally identifiable information from aggregated census data,â in large part because of the Census Bureauâs well-developed techniques (including data swapping) for minimizing identifiable information. He knows of no example since World War IIâthe âinfamous exampleâ of disclosure of information involving Japanese Americansâof the Census Bureau willfully or inadvertently releasing personally identifiable information about an individual, which is an extremely commendable effort. Steinhardt did note that one might not be able to identify particular individuals in aggregate census data but one can tell when there are some outliersâfar different in some characteristic than the norm, within some fairly discrete answer. How much information one can glean from outliers and whether marketers and others in the for-profit sector make use of them are open and interesting questions, Steinhardt observed. With that said, and recognizing the many âextraordinarily valuable role[s]â played by the ACS, as illustrated by the presentations at the workshop, Steinhardt said that it has to be recognized that some of the questions on the ACS involve personally sensitive information. Moreover, many of the ACS questions are inherently highly personal in natureâSteinhardt said that there is âno other way to get the value out of the ACS without asking those questions,â using the personal answers to produce estimates at aggregate levels. So, getting to the way in which a privacy rights advocate reads the ACS, Steinhardt said that the first natural question is how well the Census Bureau protects the data. As he said before, âthe answer is âvery wellâ ââthe Census Bureau has a âsterling record of protecting the data.â He recalledâfrom his tenure at the ACLUâactively urging people to fill out the decennial census form and the ACS questionnaire, saying that they could do so âwith great confidence that their data would be protected.â So, on that level, the ACS is not troubling. However, the question of whether responses to the ACS should be voluntary or mandatory is another matter. Steinhardt said that, in his opinion, âit is a close constitutional questionâ as to whether the Census Bureau can compel responses to all of the questions on the ACS. To be clear, he continued, âI am hardly a constitutional originalist on thisââcensus practices have had to change, and have changed, since ratification of the Constitution and the conduct of the 1790 census, and he does not want to try to parse exactly what the founders could have possibly envisioned regarding the census. Moreover, there is âcertainly a whole range of questions which I believe people have a constitutional obligation to answer.â But, he suggested, âI think it is a stretchâ to argue that questions of
THE BURDENS OF THE ACS, AND CLOSING DISCUSSION 155 âwhether or not you heat your home with natural gasâ and whether that natural gas is in a bottle or comes through a pipe3 flow directly from the constitutional mandate to apportion the Congress. In the voluntary-versus-mandatory debate, Steinhardt observed, it is fre- quently mentioned that the Census Bureau has never prosecuted anyone for failure to answer the questions. In the cases that he is aware of, where litigants have challenged the penalties for nonresponse, Steinhardt said that the courts have uniformly declined to hear the question; because the Census Bureau has not brought charges against anyone, the litigants have âno credible fear of pros- ecutionâ and so the courts rule that they lack standing to bring the case. In his opinion, Steinhardt said that he thinks âthe courts are wrong in that,â and that actual judicial examination of the issues would be very interestingâand âan ex- traordinarily close question about whether or not you can be required to answer all the questions.â Concluding his remarks, Steinhardt said that âif you ask me as a privacy advocate what I worry about,â the mandatory-versus-voluntary issue is not at the top of the list. Again commending the Census Bureauâs âsterling recordâ in resisting such entreaties, Steinhardt argued that a breach in the Census Bureauâs protections and the misuse of census or ACS data by other elements in the fed- eral government would be vastly more damaging to the enterprise of the ACS. He said that he appreciated hearing about the manifold uses of the ACS, that he thinks that the ACS plays an extremely valuable role, and that Congress should continue to support the ACS. He is, however, firm in his conclusion that the question of whether all of the ACS questions should be mandatory responses is a close constitutional question. 8âD IDENTIFYING (AND REDUCING) RESPONDENT BURDEN The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 requires federal agencies like the Census Bureau to submit proposed âinformation collectionsââessentially, any gathering of information from 10 or more respondentsâto the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for clearance, at least once every 3 years for an ongoing survey like the ACS. OMB, in turn, is asked to weighâamong other thingsâwhether the demands that the collection puts on respondentsâ time are appropriate (and reduced to the extent possible). In its most recent request for clearance of the ACS (viewable by searching for Information Collec- tion Review 201202-0607-003 on http://www.reginfo.gov), the Census Bureau estimated that the standard ACS housing unit questionnaire takes about 40 min- utes to complete on the mailed paper form and about 27 minutes administered 3 Housing Question 10 on the 2012 ACS questionnaires asks âWhich FUEL is used MOST for heating this house, apartment, or mobile home?â The first two response categories, out of nine, are âGas: from underground pipes serving the neighborhoodâ and âGas: bottled, tank, or LP.â
156 BENEFITS, BURDENS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY by phone or personal interview. (The actual time to complete the survey de- pends critically on the number of people in the householdâand, with it, the number of person-level questions that must be answered.) Based on these as- sumptions, and including quality control interview and data collection from group quarters as well as households, the Census Bureau said that it anticipates the average annual respondent burden for 2012â2015 to be roughly 2,435,568 hours across 3,805,200 respondentsâa large commitment of time and resources that invites continued and active discussion to keep that burden in check. Asked to comment specifically on issues of respondent burden, Kenneth Darga (Michigan state demographer) framed the problem by noting that true respondent burden includes at least two major components: demands that the survey puts on respondentsâ time and effort (as described above) and the cost/burden of revealing personal information. He said that his comments are intended to place these components into context through comparison with other demands for time and effort and with disclosure of personal information. He first asked the workshop audience to consider that various levels of governmentâfederal, state, localâplace myriad demands on individualsâ time and effort (not to mention, in some cases, their money). Among these, the federal government demands compulsory military registration (and, in some wartime periods, compulsory service); it also directs that individuals wait in line for Transportation Security Administration screening in order to travel by air. Depending on the letter of the law in individual states, state government makes a strong, mandatory claim on young peoplesâ time: mandatory school attendance from anywhere from 10 to 14 years. And state and local govern- ments both demand that people wait at traffic lights, and that they keep their lawn mowed and their sidewalks clear of snow in winter. Against this backdrop, Darga argued, is the particular demand by the federal government to complete the ACS questionnaireâa demand, roughly speaking, that is made of a specified household âabout once every 45 years.â As has been said of the ACS, Darga commented that it is conceptually possible to make any of the other demands that he listed voluntary rather than mandatoryâbut, as Brown had suggested in his remarks, there are tradeoffs. If waiting at traffic lights were made voluntary, it could appear on the surface like giving people a freedom that they did not have beforeâyet, at the same time, Darga said that the move would work to take away or impair the special freedom of being able to drive safely. Likewise, as others have argued, it might appear that making the ACS voluntary would free up individualsâ time, but it could introduce major costs in impeding good and relatively unbiased data. Darga reasoned that the ACS is the least of the demands that he listed, especially amortized over a 45-year period, but that the fundamental problem is that the ACS is a little-understood (and hence much-resented) demand; people instinctively understand why they have to stop at traffic lights or mow their lawns, but the reasons for completing the ACS questionnaire are less clear.
THE BURDENS OF THE ACS, AND CLOSING DISCUSSION 157 Darga added that, to be sure, the actual time and effort needed to complete the ACS varies considerably across households. Most fundamentally, most of the questions on the ACS are asked about each individual in the household; larger households necessarily require longer times to complete the question- naire. Other factors that can inflate the time needed to complete the ACS questionnaireâin essence, Darga completed his analogy, mowing the lawn sev- eral times rather than just onceâinclude language barriers and literacy issues. He said that he would shortly offer some suggestions for reducing this burden but that, in his mind, the relevant question is, essentially: Is completing the ACS as important as spending the same number (or more) minutes cutting grass, wait- ing at traffic lights, orâgenerallyâdoing any of the large number of other things that various governments require us to do for the public good? Turning to the second broad component of burden, Darga echoed Steinhardtâs conclusion thatâfor some peopleâsome of the information called for by the ACS questionnaire can be sensitive. Someoneâs actual level of edu- cational attainment might be less than most people think it is; racial or ethnic background might be a deep family secret; in some contexts, and in a climate of concern about identity theft or government intrusiveness, even the basic data item of a personâs name might be deemed sensitive. On this point, Darga said that it is impossible for the Census Bureau to fully anticipate which data items might be deemed sensitive by which particular individuals, so its only natural responseâa commendable oneâis to zealously guard all personal data as confidential. Continuing, Darga suggested an important contrast with other demands for personal information: âwhen the [Internal Revenue Service] or an insurance company or a police officer wants information about you it is generally because they want to make some sort of decision about you.â But the Census Bureau is fundamentally different in that what it really wants is aggregate information, not personal informationâthe catch being that it is not possible to arrive at those aggregate data without asking respondents inherently personal questions and then adding the responses together. Under the broad heading of disclosing personal information, Darga said that he wanted to make two other points (and draw two additional contrasts be- tween the ACS and other situations). One is that it should be acknowledged that some (but definitely not all) of the information requested by the ACS is already known and disclosed to many individuals and organizations. Tax records, em- ployer files, driver records, local assessor records, conversation with neighbors, and so forthâDarga said that if the FBI or some other entity wants specific in- formation about a particular person, they can get it from these kinds of sources. But the contrast with the ACS is important to bear in mind. These other data sources are well suited to the revelation of personal information but not pro- ducing the aggregate characteristics of an entity like a census tract, which is the ACSâs strength. Another point is that information about specific individuals is not available from the ACSâand, arguably, would not be very useful if it were.
158 BENEFITS, BURDENS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY Using himself as an example, Darga said that âanyone who wants information about me can forget about getting it from the ACS,â for two basic reasons: ⢠Procedurally, the confidentiality safeguards lauded by Steinhardt prevent browsing or look-up of individual information for purposes other than compiling statistics or evaluating the survey, and ⢠Logically, one could not possibly find information about Darga from the ACS for the simple reason that âmy household has not gotten an ACS form yetââthe same statement that could be made by the vast majority of persons and households in the country. Put more succinctly, Darga said that âif Big Brother wants information about me, he does not really need the ACSâââhis best bet is the Internet.â Darga concluded by offering four specific suggestions that could be consid- ered for reducing respondent burden and alleviating privacy concerns: ⢠Improve the layout of the ACS questionnaire to make it easier and quicker to report information for large families: Darga observed that the current ACS questionnaire can seem intimidatingly long but that a major reason for that is cosmetic in natureâthe same core of questions is repeated five times, for each member of the family. So, he said, the person respond- ing for a large family âneeds to read through four pages of questions five separate timesââfrustrating for many people, and actually difficult to do in households where language or literacy concerns exist. Darga suggested that strategies for developing and deploying a large-family formâa colum- nar format where each question would only have to be read once and then answers for each person made across a rowâcould shorten the form and make it less imposing. ⢠Make better provisions for complex households: For living situations like co- op student housing or group homes, the ACS data collection task is one of collecting all the information of households of many unrelated residentsâ and, Darga said, it is tough to envision or rely on a âhouse secretary who is going to take responsibility for answering the ACSâ on behalf of 20 unre- lated residents. In these kinds of households, the Census Bureauâs effective âall-or-nothingâ approach to collectionâassuming that the response will be automatically coordinated for everyone in the householdâmay not be effective. It might be worth considering asking the lead respondent to make the roster of people in the household but to permit checkboxes to be filled for people (or subhouseholds) where the Census Bureau would be better off making a separate contact (by mail or phone). This kind of approach could prove helpful in settings where people do not want to disclose personal information to a housemate or where some household members are unavailable when the (single) form is being filled out. ⢠Suggest an alternative for people who do not want to provide their legal names: Darga said that simply reporting oneâs name can take respondents
THE BURDENS OF THE ACS, AND CLOSING DISCUSSION 159 aback; they might fear identity theft, they might fear exposure of immi- gration status, orâfor other reasonsâthey might not want to give their name to a government agency for any other purpose. So, he reasoned, one possible fix would be to take the personâs name out of the equation. Structurally, Darga said that the primary roles played by person name in the current ACS are to simply âkeep people straight while answering the questionsâ (e.g., to ensure that âPerson 3â is actually the same person through the whole questionnaire), and to help follow-up workers clarify missing or contradictory information. It may be feasible to achieve both of those objectives by allowing respondents to use or claim a nickname or an alias; Darga added that deemphasizing the need for reporting names could help the Census Bureau make clear its interest in aggregate informa- tion rather than âbuilding a master database of personal information on individuals.â ⢠Consider the use of an incentive to help reverse attitudes toward partici- pating in the ACS: Acknowledging that âit is probably not feasible to include a cash incentive payment in the Census Bureauâs budgetâ for the ACS, Darga suggested âmany politiciansâand taxpayersâdo like tax cuts.â Darga suggested that some small tax credit for people who have submitted a complete ACS form could be a reasonable way to offset a sample householdâs time and effort in completing the survey. Indeed, he remarked, âwe might even start to see people complaining that they havenât received an ACS form instead of complaining that they have.â 8âE RESPONDENT COMPLAINTS AND CONGRESSIONAL REACTION Acknowledging that he had been asked by the workshop planners to serve as a sort of âdesignated complainer,â Stephen Tordella (Decision Demographics, Inc.) opened his remarks by stating that âthe ACS really is a burden; there is no way of getting around that.â But, he continued, his remarks are meant to underscore two basic points, the first being that the âburdenâ of the ACS isâand should beâ-partially borne by Congress, one of the surveyâs most important stakeholders. As to the second, he recalled that he used to work for a sales- driven organization, in which the constant mantra was ânothing happens until somebody makes a sale.â Tordella said that it is equally true that, for the census and the ACS, ânothing happens until people send in their responses.â Hence, his second major pointâthat respondents should be viewed as âthe most valuable commodity we haveâââthey should be revered and treasured, not threatened,â and they deserve more prominence in census and ACS operations. First, specific to the burden argument, Tordella said that he had talked to a lot of people in the weeks before the workshop, to get their reactions to some of
160 BENEFITS, BURDENS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY the ACS questions. From those conversations, Tordella concluded that the data and the underlying estimates are certainly important but that even the advocates of the estimates have to concede that there is something ridiculous, something odd about asking people âwhen they left the house that morning or whether they have toilets.â He said that his own wifeâs reactionsâthe morning of the workshop, previewing his commentsâwere telling. Asking her whether she knew about the question about toilets, she shrugged, and admitted that she did not understand why the Census Bureau would be asking about toilets. He fol- lowed up: âHow about if somebody asked you what time you left the house this morning?â His wifeâs immediate response was that the question âseemed kind of creepy,â and Tordella suggested that âthere is no way that it will ever not seem creepy to some group of people.â No one knows the real number of complaints lodged against the ACS, Tordella saidâcertainly not the congressional staff members he talked to about the ACS. The Census Bureau âhas a little better idea,â keeping a record of correspondence that they receive, but even that misses the silent complaintsâ questionnaires not filed out of anger or aggravation. Still, he suggested that the correspondence suggests some of the flavor and the magnitude of complaints about the surveyâeven if 1 in 1,000 people complain, 1 out of 1,000 of the roughly 3 million households reached by the ACS each year, âthat is still 3,000 complaints,â from which insight can be gleaned. From his interactions with Census Bureau staff, Tordella said that he re- ceived information about some broad categories of reactions to the ACS. The most voluminous of the complaints are those objecting to the perception of in- trusive and invasive questions. He quoted from some of these complaints: ⢠âThis is a lengthy questionnaire that asks very personal questions that are frankly no oneâs business.â ⢠âWhy would you ask, or need to know, what time I leave for work each day, and how long it takes me to get to work? Nor do I understand what my monthly bills have to do with it?â ⢠âI find this survey very invasive and really none of the Bureauâs business.â A second broad category of complaints comes from people who did not return the mailed questionnaire, and so complain about the telephone and field visit follow-up steps. Again, Tordella recited some quotes from the correspondence to the Census Bureau: ⢠âI spoke with a Census rep last month and since then I have been getting five to ten calls a day from random people claiming to be employees of Census.â ⢠âI called the number for assistance [and] was horrified at the rude and in- sulting and harassing and threatening language used by the person suppos- edly there to provide assistance. Naturally, this made me more suspicious of the survey of its intended purpose.â
THE BURDENS OF THE ACS, AND CLOSING DISCUSSION 161 ⢠âA worker came to my home and she was very hostile. She said that it was mandatory that we fill out the Census. We told her we already did the Census. She said we had to fill it out. We told her that we were under the impression that the Census was voluntary. She went on to say that there was personal information that was needed. We did report her to our local police department.â Following the theme of the last quote, the next set of complaints concerns the mandatory nature of response: ⢠âIn which country am I living [if this is mandatory]?â ⢠âI am only responding so I do not have to pay a fineâbut I am EX- TREMELY uncomfortable about providing this informationâ (Tordella emphasized that âextremelyâ was written in all-capitals). ⢠âBeing forced to complete a survey like this gives me the feeling of being a disenfranchised federal tax-paying citizen with no option but to shut up, fill out the survey used to distribute money that we donât have, and pay higher taxes.â Other complaints are fewer in number but can be particularly vocal and passion- ate. Tordella said that worries about whether the ACS questionnaire is really a scam seem to be particularly acute among the elderly and infirm; their surro- gates or caretakers will make appeals and inquiries raising that concern. Other complaints question the constitutionality of the ACS and the degree of overlap between the ACS and other agenciesâ data sources. He closed the recitation of common complaints by reading a longer quote from one letter: I find this American Community Survey to be appalling, invasive, and in- trusive, and none of the governmentâs business and I intend to let my sena- tors and congressmen know how I feel. Take note of that. And, Tordella concluded, âa good number of them do.â Even if it is 1 in 1,000, âthese are legitimate and heartfelt beliefs,â and that is the backdrop against which the ACS must operate. He said that these kinds of complaints are never going to go away completelyâbut neither are they a completely new phenomenon. He recalled being interviewed on Wisconsin Public Radio during the preparations for the 1980 census; reviewing some of the reported complaints about the ACS brought back memories of that day in Wisconsin because many of the same issues and claims of harassment by the census were raised then. The dots are not hard to connect concerning the way these kinds of ACS complaints register on Capitol Hill, Tordella said. Congress is necessarily âpart of the complaint bureau for the ACSââtheir staff members field these kind of complaints and the ACS, being in continuous operation, spurs such complaints every week of the yearââand Congress controls your budget.â To be sure, he added, Congress is a diverse body just as the American public is diverse, and so contains a range of views on the role of the government in the census and
162 BENEFITS, BURDENS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY ACS. Tordella noted his sincere personal belief that âthere should be some peo- ple in Congress who hate the census and everything it is aboutâjust to keep the Census Bureau on its toes.â But there are many other members of Congress for whom the ACS only existsâto the extent that they recognize itâas a source of âcontinual pain,â the source of those complaints from constituents. From his conversations with congressional staff members, Tordella said that he concluded that there is a feeling out there that the Census Bureau is doing lit- tle to alleviate the perception problems with the ACS. âPress these congressional staffers about the idea of a voluntary ACS and the cost and quality implications, and their response is, âYou fix it.â â Use cost savings from Internet data collec- tion, or work out some new methodology, but âjust go and fix it.â With that in mind, Tordella suggested that one possible solutionâor at least âa place to startââwould be for the Census Bureau to recognize that ârespon- dents really should be king.â Newspapers have ombudsmen to take readersâ perspectives in mind and challenge editorial approachesâTordella asked âwhy shouldnât the respondent have an ombudsmanâ appointed at the Census Bu- reau? There are mechanisms within the Census Bureau that serve to protect respondentsâ rightsâa chief privacy officer and a Disclosure Review Board, for instanceâbut those are little understood (or appreciated) by the public. A highly visible ombudsman and a citizenâs advisory panel, âwhere people feel like they can be heard,â could go a long way to improving perceptions of the ACS. Tordella then briefly displayed some recent screenshots of the Census Bu- reauâs homepage to suggest that âthere should really be a lot made on the web- site about respondents.â On the particular day he visited the site, one of the four âtop storiesâ on a few-seconds rotation at the top of the page actually did speak to respondents: âYour Response Makes a Difference for Small Businessesâ read the headline, above a link to more information about the 2012 Economic Census. That is good, but seemingly a one-shot dealâif you have received a questionnaire from the ACS or some other survey you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and find, in small type, the link âAre You in a Survey?â in order to start having your questions answered. He argued that the placement of the link has probably been tested in some wayââCensus tests most thingsââbut he concluded that it ought to be much easier for respondents to find supporting information, to find justification for the questions they are being asked, and to feel as though their concerns are heard. He closed by nothing that these kinds of ârespondent relationsâ steps might not alleviate all of the complaints, but that the Census Bureau could still ben- efit from themâand learn from the examples of other agencies. Arguably, he said, the federal agency âthat has the most teeth and the most penalties and the most influence over the American peopleâ is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which went through a substantial modernization in the 1990s. That moderniza- tion succeeded, he said, not solely through upgrades in information technology,
THE BURDENS OF THE ACS, AND CLOSING DISCUSSION 163 but also through concerted attention to taxpayer needs and concerns. These days, âeven the IRS is kinder and gentlerââsurely, he said, there must be ways for the Census Bureau to be kinder and gentler as well. 8âF DISCUSSION In the general discussion session following the speakersâ opening statements, Dargaâs suggestion of finding some way to incentivize ACS response drew a variety of reactions. Patrick Jankowski (Greater Houston Partnership) asked other session speakers to comment on that specific proposal, and Fecso said that he worried about the idea âsnowballing to all the other federal surveysââ ultimately, the financial costs of the incentive might outweigh âwhat you are getting outâ of the incentives in terms of good response. Recalling his immer- sion in the complaints expressed about the ACS, Tordella replied that people might look at an incentive program and ask âwhy are we giving away more tax dollars for nothing?ââan incentive might boost response, but it could also cre- ate more hard-set opposition to the survey. Brian Harris-Kojetin (U.S. Office of Management and Budget) reminded the workshop audience thatâjust the week before the workshopâthe House of Representatives approved an amend- ment to an appropriations bill (albeit not the Commerce, Justice, and Science bill that funds the Census Bureau) prohibiting the use of money as a respondent incentive in a survey, so the legality of federal survey incentives is a matter of considerable current debate.4 Dan Weinberg (U.S. Census Bureau) argued that even the idea of a tax credit, rather than a cash incentive, is infeasible because the Census Bureau would have to violate its own confidentiality provisions in order to tell the IRS who had completed the survey; Darga countered that some kind of stub or âreceiptâ from the ACS response could be attached with a tax return if the respondent wanted to claim the credit, but Weinberg argued that simply confirming a person or householdâs inclusion in the ACS could consti- tute a Title 13 violation. Alan Zaskavsky (Harvard University) addressed a question to Brown and his specific example of estimating service-connected disability ratings among veter- ans (though, he noted, other speakers in the workshop sessions could address it in their own fields). Would clients or end users like the Division of Aging Services accept a move to much more model-based estimates? Such estimates might be smoother and have smaller intervalsâat the risk of possibly looking 4 On June 6, 2012, the House voted 355â51 in favor of an amendment to H.R. 5325, the En- ergy and Water appropriations bill for fiscal year 2013, offered by Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colorado). Motivated specifically by $2 and $20 incentives offered in a 1,000-household Bureau of Reclamation survey on attitudes toward removing dams on the Klamath River, the amendmentâs language swept wider: âNone of the funds made available by this Act may be used to conduct a survey in which money is included or provided for the benefit of the responder.â The whole bill, as amended, was passed that same day, and awaits consideration in the Senate.
164 BENEFITS, BURDENS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY more like a constant rate across the different disability rate categories. Put an- other way, is the problem for the division that the margins of error are so large and the intervals so wide, or is it that the statistical evidence does not differ- entiate much between the categories? Brown indicated that he thought such model-baed estimates could certainly win acceptance, and could be viewed as credible compared to estimates with much larger margins of error. Brown said that his sense is that people generally accept that the highly publicized monthly unemployment statistics are comprised of model-based estimates. Terri Ann Lowenthal (Funders Census Initiative and the Census Project) and Steinhardt engaged in a colloquy over Steinhardtâs assertion that the manda- tory nature of the ACS is a close constitutional question. Lowenthal said that she had to ârespectfully but firmly disagreeâ about mandatory response being a close call; she mentioned discussions in the first Congress about the content of the 1790 census (asking for more than a simple headcount) and court cases up- holding the constitutionality of the content on the previous census long form. In her mind, the constitutionality of mandatory response âseems to be on pretty solid ground.â Steinhardt replied that there are legal scholars who see the ques- tion as similarly clear-cutâin the opposite direction. He said that what he finds significant is that the courts have never really addressed the issue head-onâthat is, dismissing cases for lack of standing is not quite the same as strongly sup- porting the constitutionality of the survey content. He reiterated his comment from his opening statement that âthe level of detail in the ACSââdown to the method of delivery of natural gasââis such that I think it is a close question.â Lowenthal answered that she saw Steinhardtâs point but sees things in a differ- ent way. She said that the issue is not really whether the framers could have possibly envisioned specific questions, but the more general issue of âwhether the government has a rightâ and the authority âto gather information for the public good.â 8âG WORKSHOP CLOSING REMARKS, AND DISCUSSION Asked for his comments on the main topics of the workshop and the prospects of the ACSâfrom his perspective as a long-time researcher, as former Texas demographer, and as former director of the U.S. Census BureauâSteve Murdock began with a slight apology for not being able to sit in on more of the workshop. However, he said, one of the reasons that he could not be present for longer was a previous speaking engagement for officers of the American As- sociation for Affirmative Action. When those officers learned where Murdock was heading next, he said that several asked him to âplease let everybody know how important the ACS is to usâwe hear itâs under attack in Congress.â Murdock said that the ACS is âcritical to what the country does for deci- sion making,â and he commended the workshop speakers for providing very
THE BURDENS OF THE ACS, AND CLOSING DISCUSSION 165 clear indications of the value of the data in a wide range of applications. He said that he wanted to make two basic points in his short remarks, the first of which is that the ACS sample size is unlikely to ever be so large as to completely mitigate the challenges that confront users of small-area ACS estimates. He de- scribed preparing a speech in a community of about 25,000 people, and he said that he commonly prepares standard demographic profilesâfrom the ACSâfor such speeches, together with his Rice University colleague George Hough. One of the standard figures that he likes to display is change in poverty rates over time, by race. In this particular instance, the 1990 and 2000 census data both showed the percent of Hispanic households in poverty in this community as be- ing roughly 36 percent; generating the same variable using 2005â2009 ACS data, the figure was 11 percent. Clearly, something seemed off, and Murdock said that he decided not to use the city-level figures in his talkâand he did not. But, âsure enough,â he was challenged during discussion by someone in the audience who noted that he had shown these data for the nation as a whole, for the state, for large metropolitan areas, and that he had presented all manner of other data for the particular community, but not that specific poverty figure. As it turned out, this particular questioner worked for the local mayor and approached Murdock after the talk, saying that the local government was currently trying to figure out how to allocate funds to various community groupsâshe asked whether they could cut the distribution to Hispanics in the community because the ACS shows so many few Hispanics in poverty, and Murdock explained that this prob- ably was not the case. The questioner replied, âOh, so youâre saying these data arenât really all that good?,â and Murdock tried to explain that the numbers have to be understood in a broader context. Murdock explained that he brought up this story because perceptions matter a great deal; consistent with Tordellaâs earlier remarks, Murdock said that it does not take a majority to create major problems for the ACSâsingle, vocal complaints from key stakeholders can do just as much damage. Acknowledging that it might sound to some âlike Iâm a traitor to the causeâââI am notââMurdock said that his second main point is that it is pru- dent for the surveyâs stakeholders to give serious thought âabout what happens if our defense of the ACS Alamo doesnât work.â The history of the battle at the Alamo suggests that many of the casualties at the fort âdied so bravely be- cause there was no way out.â Murdock emphasized that he âhas absolutely no doubt in the utility of the ACS dataâ; having led the Bureau, he also has ânoth- ing but complete and total admiration for the Census Bureau staff that does this work.â Nonetheless, he suggested that stakeholders need to âstart talking qui- etly, constructively,â about viable alternatives and about managing the tradeoffs that might come through alternative sampling sizes or aggregations of periods over time. He closed by expressing his hope that this workshop could be fol- lowed up with one that asks: âWhat would you do? What can we do? What can we suggest?â Work should certainly continue to support the current ACS de-
166 BENEFITS, BURDENS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY sign, and hopefully it can succeed, but he suggested that, unfortunately, ânoble causes and noble rationales donât always work politically.â At the end of Murdockâs remarks, steering committee co-chair Linda Gage (California Department of Finance, retired) asked whether anyone from the Census Bureau had any summary comments that they would like to offer. Jim Treat (chief, American Community Survey Office, U.S. Census Bureau) said that he came to the workshop with âhigh expectations of what I was going to hear,â and that those expectations had been exceeded by all the presentations and discussions. He said that he and his colleagues have a great deal of infor- mation to take backâexamples of specific data uses to flesh out and emphasize, challenges in communication to work onâand he thanked the presenters and participants for their efforts. Constance Citro (Committee on National Statis- tics) added that the day and a half had been âfantastic,â outlining the breadth and depth of uses of ACS dataâalone and in combination with other data sourcesâ for a wide range of policy areas. She noted that the workshop would contribute, in part, to the work of a new National Research Council panel on ACS techni- cal issues, and credited the Census Bureau with taking a hard, open look at the whole ACS program and finding ways âwhere it can be focused, improved, and made more useful.â Like Murdock, she said that she did ânot want to be defeatist in any way,â but that she agreed that ongoing examination of the ACS demands serious alternativesâways to make the ACS âas cost-effective as possible in a very tough political environment.â