Power of statistics: US Census has politicians on edge

Mar 11, 2010, 9:48 GMT

Washington - Floyd Wayne Williams Jr faces the death penalty, accused of murdering two people in the state of Georgia. His lawyers this week launched what has been dubbed the 'census defence' to get the charges dismissed.

The Georgia Supreme Court must decide whether Williams' trial should be thrown out or delayed until completion of the 2010 Census, an official tally of the US population taken every 10 years.

Williams, an African-American man, says the racial make-up of the county where he faces trial has dramatically changed since the last census in 2000. Waiting for the new population count means more African-Americans would be placed in the pool of jurors who will be chosen to decide his fate.

The racial balance of juries is one of countless impacts the 2010 Census has on US society: from federal funding of local services to government retirement benefits to how many representatives each state gets in Congress.

Required by the US Constitution, the census has been taken every 10 years since 1790. It is often controversial, as the results have far-reaching implications for businesses, politics and society.

A census survey will arrive in the mailboxes of every home in the United States starting Monday. It asks 10 basic questions - far fewer than in past years - related to race, age, sex and ethnicity.

For those who fail to return the form, there will be an army of temporary workers knocking on doors throughout the country in a bid to make sure that every last person living in the United States is counted, including illegal residents.

This is a massive undertaking for the government, which is expected to hire about 750,000 workers during the peak month of May and spend about 15 billion dollars, providing the US economy with a noticeable upswing.

The wave of short-term hirings could lower the US jobless rate by as much as half a percentage point in the coming months, slightly easing the blow from a recession that has driven the unemployment rate to near a quarter-century high of 9.7 per cent.

Businesses, too, will pour over the final results for marketing clues about where to open new stores and whether to target Hispanics and other growing minority group, as the non-white proportion of the US population is projected to grow significantly.

States, counties and cities will all be fighting to get as many of their residents counted as possible. At stake is about 500 billion dollars per year in federal money for local services like public schools, transportation and housing projects.

'The funds that come based on the census directly impact the fundamental services that citizens depend on,' said Dan Borut, executive director of the National League of Cities. 'This isn't a game. This has meaning.'

The census has political ramifications that put both parties on a knife's edge. States that have shed population could lose seats in the 435-member House of Representatives. In 2000, North Carolina gained a seat over Utah because of a difference of just 857 inhabitants.

When President Barack Obama nominated Republican Judd Gregg last year to head the Commerce Department, which administers the census, Obama bowed to complaints from Democrats by limiting Gregg's influence over the 2010 population count. Gregg eventually withdrew his name, citing the census row among his reasons.

Obama's choice to lead the Census Bureau, Robert Groves, comes with his own political baggage. Groves has favoured using statistical sampling to account for residents who are not reached in person.

This is hugely controversial in political circles: people that are undercounted in the census are typically poor and minorities - constituencies assumed more likely to vote for left-leaning Democrats than more conservative Republicans.

An accurate count is no easy task. Just 72 per cent of households mailed back their census forms in 2000, and Groves warned that public awareness of the count is at a 10-year low. He appealed Wednesday to people's 'civic responsibility.'