RE: Discussion: Why Do We Need a “Growing” Population?
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I use to think the census was a good source to depend on, then I worked as a census taker and no longer believe that to be true. Like take for instance they think the count for college kids was under but if you ask me it was over. That's because the data turned in had to be data from who lived somewhere on April first. When covid broke college kids went home. So when you went to these houses later in the years most had new students in them, they have no idea who was living there on April one so you have to find the landlord or rental agency. Then you ask the kids currently living there if they did their census and most replied they were back home and their parents put them on theirs. That holds true for the vast majority of the college kids, and we have a lot of them. If you ask me many were double counted because you were forced to go to the landlord or rental agency and most won't give you personal info but will tell you how many were living there on April first. You are told to process them as person one, person two, person three and so forth. So if their parents put them on their census and the landlord or rental agency would only give you non personal info then in actuality they got counted twice. Same with the Hispanic count, there are claims they were undercounted, but in one large apartment complex where a lot of Hispanics live who refused to do the census you then go to the rental office and they are suppose to give you the info, if they refuse then it's like with the college kids, they give you a number of how many people were there on April first and you input them as person one, person two, etc., you have no other information to input. People don't cooperate with the census a lot of times, when it gets down to the end you are pretty much sent out to those who have repeatedly given other census workers a hard time. Lot of Hispanics, anti government and just people who plain think it's no one's business who is living there. Then they want you to go ask neighbors, depending upon the area a lot of neighbors don't want to be seen talking, you could spend hours trying to find someone willing to talk...it usually ends up the person who refused gives you the info because the neighbors get upset with them because census workers keep repeatedly keep being sent back.
Appreciate the inside insight into the workings of the census... I often wondered how they could expect to come up with accurate numbers.
For example, our 33-year old son still lives "here," based on his diver's license and voter registration... because his car (older) doesn't have to pass emissions testing in this county. But he actually lives in Seattle, but hsi address doesn't actually exist because his "landlord" runs an only pseudo-legal "boarding house," meaning it's a house that's divided into apartments, but because of the cost toget it zoned "multi-family" it's still listed as a house... except it has multiple permanent paying guests.
So if a census taker came to son's front door (he has his own) he's be counted as a person living there, again.
Meanwhile, I replied to the 2020 Census by taking an online questionnaire.
There's also the people who get marked to dangerous to approach, the couple of months of doing the census I probably saw about fifty outlined in red on my list, that makes the listing stand out so you don't go there. I ended up having three encounters that got marked in red myself, various reasons people get hostile toward you and I don't intimidate easily so if I was calling my supervisor it was because I could see this individual being dangerous to more naïve younger girls doing the census. The warning signs are all there and they may not pick up on them quick enough, nor should they be put in hostile situations like that. We weren't allowed to carry anything to defend ourselves either, not even mace or pepper spray, we couldn't even have it in our car. There are probably thousands of people like that all across the country who don't get counted, if they tell you to get off their property the most you can do is report they claimed it's their property, mark them as a person one, that I know at least he/she lives there, give race but unknow ethnicity.