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ellipses
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amom
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 Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:17 am Post subject: |
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I thought I received the Census forms on Saturday, but after this email I opened the envelope and voila! the letter saying I will be getting a Census form. What a waste of money. 
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ellipses
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:22 am Post subject: |
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The article I posted said that multiple contacts via TV, Radio, and direct mail prior to the "real" census mailing increase participation by a rate sufficient to reduce the cost of door-to-door census takers by more than the cost of advertising it... If they didn't send the mailings out, the rate of participation would be so much lower that the cost to interview in person would cost more than what it costs to send those teasers...
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amom
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:37 am Post subject: |
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I don't disagree with that reasoning, really I don't. It's just with my involvement in local government we are inundated with Census material and I notice the print, TV and Radio ads probably more than the regular person. It just seems that the letter is overkill. I've heard that each Census the cost is twice as much as the last Census. Maybe by 2020 they'll figure a way to do it electronically.
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ellipses
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:53 am Post subject: |
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I wish they'd figure that out, too... I mean, the right's collective heads will explode if one poor hispanic hits submit twice... but screw 'em... If I can pay 95% of my bills, renew my registration, AND watch government work via cspan.org on the internet, then I can fill out a survey... it's not rocket surgery 
If the cost of the census doubles each time, the inflation rate for the census is only about 7%... which is not bad considering the economic inputs for the census are things that generally outpace regular inflation... fuel, postage, etc... we have about 30 million more people in the country now than in 2000 and postage costs are 30% higher. Even if you hired census workers at minimum wage, minimum wage has increased by over 20% in the same time. Gasoline is almost 300% higher per gallon than in 2000, depending on which month you use as your index base and your comparison point... and advertising costs are probably higher, though I don't have a reference for that.
It sounds crazy for something like the census to double in cost every decade... but broken into it's component parts, it's not surprising... I agree that moving it to electronic could be the disruptive innovation that would dramatically decrease the cost for the next one.
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busdriver
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| Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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| amom wrote: | | I thought I received the Census forms on Saturday, but after this email I opened the envelope and voila! the letter saying I will be getting a Census form. What a waste of money. |
Not very patriotic lady; I know you are aware of the dire straights the PO is in today( and who among us has not resorted to sending E-mails instead of sitting down and writing a letter ,posting and mailing it ; or as phoney would say, (like we did in the old days)?
So, if there were several billion (1st class, no less, instead of bulk) letters mailed out to help our brothers and sisters in the USPS, so be it. |
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