CENSUS

CENSUS

An official count of the population of a particular area, such as a district, state, or nation.
The U.S. Constitution requires that a census of the entire population, citizens and noncitizens alike, be made every ten years (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3). The FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT to the Constitution directs that the census
will be used to determine the number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives from
each state. The census is conducted by the U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, an agency established in 1899
within the U.S. COMMERCE DEPARTMENT. The
data gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau are
used by the states to draw boundaries for con-
gressional and state legislative districts, and by
local governments to establish districts for other
representative bodies such as county legisla-
tures, city councils, and boards of supervisors.

Census data are also used to allocate federal
and state funding and services. By the mid-
1990s, more than $50 billion in federal aid for
education, housing, and health programs to
states and cities was distributed annually based
on census numbers. In addition, census infor-
mation is used in academic research and is
sought by product manufacturers and marketers
who want to know the demographics of poten-
tial consumers.
The first U.S. census took place in 1790
when some six hundred U.S. MARSHALS went
door-to-door counting approximately 3.9 mil-
lion people. The 1790 census consisted of fewer
than ten questions, which for each household
included the name of the head of the family, the
number of free white males over and under 16
years of age, the number of free white females,
the number of all other free persons, and the
number of slaves.
The 1890 census counted 63 million U.S. cit-
izens and reflected a dramatic increase in immi-
gration, urbanization, and industrialization.
That census showed that for the first time fewer
than half of all U.S. workers were employed on
farms. The 1890 census included questions
regarding military service during the Civil War,
number of years in the United States, naturaliza-
tion status, reading and writing ability, and
mental and physical disabilities.
By 1980, the Census Bureau conceded that
the decennial censuses were undercounting por-
tions of the population, usually low-income and
minority groups in the inner cities. In follow-up
surveys after the 1980 census the bureau deter-
mined that it had missed some 3.2 million per-
sons, or 1.4 percent of the population. For
example, a 1986 post-census survey of East Los
Angeles estimated that the 1980 census missed
about ten percent of the Latino community,
seven percent of the Asian community, and nine
percent of the black community. Census officials
determined that overall, nearly six percent of the black and Hispanic populations were uncounted and less than one percent of the white population.
By May 1987, the Census Bureau had determined
that the 1990 census could be adjusted
for undercounting by using a technique called a
post-enumeration survey (PES). The PES would
allow the census to be checked for accuracy by
sending census takers back to a given number of
households that would be representative of the
entire U.S. population and comparing the information
gathered with the initial head count. If
discrepancies arose, the bureau could make corrections
and project them to neighborhoods
with similar demographic characteristics.
But in October 1987, officials from the
Commerce Department, which oversees the
Census Bureau, decided against making any statistical
adjustment to the 1990 census. As a
result, in 1988, New York, Los Angeles, and several
other cities, as well as a number of states and
organizations, brought suit in federal district
court. They claimed that the secretary’s decision
not to adjust the 1990 census violated their right
to EQUAL PROTECTION under the FIFTH AMENDMENT
to the Constitution and asked the court to
enjoin the census. They also argued that the
Commerce Department’s actions were politically
motivated by a Republican administration
that realized that the undercounted population
is historically Democratic. The defendants
moved to dismiss the complaint, contending
that the secretary’s decision was not subject to
JUDICIAL REVIEW. In City of New York v. United
States Department of Commerce, 713 F. Supp. 48
(E.D.N.Y. 1989), the district court denied the
motion to dismiss, holding that the plaintiffs
had standing (the legal right) to challenge the
census on constitutional grounds and that the
court could review the secretary’s decision.
Following the district court’s decision the
parties entered into a stipulation in July 1989 by
which plaintiffs would withdraw their motion to
enjoin the census and the Commerce Department
would reconsider its 1987 decision not to
adjust the 1990 census. The agreement required
the Commerce Department to conduct a PES of
not fewer than 150,000 households as part of the
1990 census in order to produce corrected
counts usable for congressional and legislative
reapportionment and redistricting. The agreement
also required the department to develop
guidelines under which the secretary would
assess any proposed adjustment. In March 1990
the Commerce Department issued final guidelines.
The plaintiffs challenged them in court on
the grounds that they were impermissibly vague
and were biased against any adjustment to the
1990 census. In City of New York, 739 F. Supp.
761 (E.D.N.Y. 1990), the district court held that
the guidelines satisfied the defendants’ obligations
under the 1989 stipulation. The Census
Bureau then began the 1990 census.
The 1990 census employed more than
425,000 workers who gathered information on
an estimated 250 million people in 106 million
households. For the first time, the Census
Bureau combined technology with traditional
door knocking, using coast-to-coast computerized
maps of all 7.5 million census tracts in the
United States. The bureau predicted that these
maps would reduce the number of errors caused
by census workers’ reliance on outdated state
and local maps. The census cost some $2.6 billion—
65 percent more than the 1980 census—
making it the most expensive count ever
conducted.
In March 1990, the bureau mailed or hand
delivered more than 106 million questionnaires,
one to every household in the United States.
Most households received a short form consisting
of 14 questions covering personal characteristics
and housing. One in six U.S. households
received a long form with 45 additional questions
on topics such as utilities, tax, mortgage,
and rent payments; place of birth; ethnic origin;
and work habits. From March to June 1990 census
workers continued the data collection. The
bureau set aside March 20, 1990, as “homeless
night.” On that night, census takers, many hired
from among the homeless population or those
who worked with them, visited shelters and lowcost
motels from 6:00 P.M. to midnight; counted
homeless people on the streets from 2:00 A.M. to
4:00 A.M.; and from 4:00 A.M. to 6:30 A.M. stood
outside abandoned buildings, counting those
who emerged.
The homeless count caused a great deal of
controversy. The 1990 census reported 228,600
HOMELESS PERSONS in the United States, compared
with earlier estimates of 500,000 to 3 million.
Advocates for homeless persons argued
that the Census Bureau had surveyed only a
third of the country’s cities and counties and
had visited only a limited number of locations.
The bureau acknowledged that its workers had
avoided actually going into hideaways such as
abandoned buildings and dumpsters because of
safety concerns and admitted that many winter shelters had closed by the time the census was
taken in late March. The bureau maintained that
its homeless survey was not intended to produce
a definitive count of the homeless population.
In October 1990, the Census Bureau issued
estimated U.S. population figures of approximately
254 million, based on a tracking of birth,
death, and immigration records. In December,
the bureau released a final U.S. population tally
of some 249 million, based on the actual mailed
census questionnaires and house-to-house
interviews. The discrepancy between the two
sets of numbers indicated that the 1990 census
missed some five million U.S. residents.
By December 31, 1990, the bureau reported
to the president population figures for each state
as well as the number of seats in the U.S. House
of Representatives that each state would receive.
Between January and March 1991, states with
early deadlines for redrawing legislative districts
received totals of all persons of voting age, broken
down by race. By April 1, 1991, most other
states received the voting age and race data.
Between April 1991 and 1993, the Census
Bureau released statistics compiled from the
long forms, including information on income,
marital status, disabilities, types of housing, and
education.
In April 1991, the bureau announced the
results of its PES. Estimates drawn from the PES
revealed that the census had resulted in a
national undercount of 2.1 percent, or approximately
5.3 million persons out of a total population
of approximately 255 million, the largest
undercounting in the history of the census. For
example, in one south central Los Angeles
neighborhood, officials determined that census
takers had underreported the number of occupants
in 38 percent of 5,800 households. As
expected, the undercount was greater for members
of racial and ethnic minorities. Hispanics
were undercounted by 5.2 percent,Native Americans
by 5.0 percent, African Americans by 4.8
percent, and Asian Pacific Islanders by 3.1 percent.
The PES-calculated undercount for non-
African Americans was 1.7 percent and for
non-Hispanic whites, 1.2 percent. Among major
cities with high undercounts were Los Angeles
(5.1 percent), Houston (5 percent),Washington,
D.C. (5 percent), Dallas (4.8 percent), Miami
(4.6 percent), Detroit (3.5 percent), and New
York (3 percent).
Among the reasons given for the low counts
were that certain segments of the population did
not believe the Census Bureau’s promise that
information is confidential and will not be
shared with other government agencies such as
the Immigration and Naturalization Service
(INS), the local housing authority, or the police;
did not have addresses and thus were missed
because the 1990 census was conducted primarily
by mail; lived in urban high-crime areas
where census takers were afraid to go door-todoor;
were illegal immigrants; feared the government
in general; or lacked proficiency in
English.
According to the bureau, if the adjusted
count were adopted, Arizona and California
would each gain a seat in the House of Representatives
and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania
would each lose one seat. These discrepancies
led state officials to renew their plea for an
adjustment of the census using the PES.
In July 1991, Secretary of Commerce Robert
A. Mosbacher announced his decision not to
adjust the 1990 census to account for the estimated
five million people undercounted by the
census. Mosbacher said that although he was
troubled by the undercount of minorities, his
decision supported the integrity of the census
and that the resulting disadvantage to minorities
should not be remedied in the official census.He
also expressed concern that adjustment might
not improve distribution of representatives
among the states and that uncertainty as to the
methods of adjustment and assumptions behind
them might cause even more dispute about the
accuracy of the census.

The plaintiffs in Wisconsin v. City of New
York 517 U.S. 1, 116 S.Ct. 1091, 134 L.Ed.2d 167
(1996), attacked the secretary’s decision, contending
that it was tainted by partisan political
influence and violated the Constitution, the
ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE ACT OF 1946, and
the 1989 stipulation agreed to by both parties in
the case. After a 13-day bench (non-jury) trial,
the district court concluded that it could not
overturn the secretary’s decision (City of New
York, 822 F. Supp. 906 [E.D.N.Y. 1993]). On
appeal, the court of appeals concluded that,
given the admittedly greater accuracy of the
adjusted count, the secretary’s decision was not
entitled to be upheld without a showing by the
secretary that the refusal to adjust the census
was essential to the achievement of a legitimate
government objective (City of New York, 34 F.3d
1114 [2d Cir. 1994]). On appeal, the Supreme
Court reversed the decision of the Second Circuit, holding that the secretary’s decision not to
adjust the census was within the government’s
discretion (___ U.S. ___, 134 L. Ed. 2d 167, 116
S. Ct. 1091 [1996]).
By October 1991, at least five state legislatures
had filed requests under the FREEDOM OF
INFORMATION ACT (FOIA) (5 U.S.C.A. § 552 et
seq.) to see the adjusted census figures in order
to decide which set of numbers should be used
to redraw state political boundaries. Secretary
Mosbacher refused to make the adjusted numbers
public, claiming they were flawed and their
release could disrupt the redistricting process. In
Assembly of California v. United States Department
of Commerce, 797 F. Supp. 1554 (E.D. Cal.
1992), California state officials brought an
action under the FOIA to enjoin the Commerce
Department from withholding computer tapes
containing statistically adjusted census data for
California. The department claimed that the
information was protected from disclosure
under an exemption to the FOIA. But the district
court said the exemption did not apply to
the census data and ordered the Commerce
Department to release the tapes. The court of
appeals affirmed the district court’s order to
release the tapes (Assembly of California, 968
F.2d 916 [9th Cir. 1992]).
In a similar case, the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Eleventh Circuit reached the opposite
result. In Florida House of Representatives v.
United States Department of Commerce, 961 F.2d
941 (11th Cir. 1992), the Florida House of Representatives
brought a FOIA action to compel
the Commerce Department to release all the
adjusted census data for Florida. The district
court granted SUMMARY JUDGMENT for Florida
and the Commerce Department appealed
(Florida House of Representatives, No. TCA 91-
40387-WS [N.D. Fla. 1992]). The Eleventh Circuit
reversed, finding that the census data were
exempted from disclosure under the FOIA. The
U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case
(Florida House of Representatives, 506 U.S. 969,
113 S. Ct. 446, 121 L. Ed. 2d 363 [1992]).
In light of the controversy over the 1990 census,
government officials and demographers
debated how best to conduct the census in 2000
and later. Many demographers argued that the
U.S. population had become too mobile and too
uncooperative to allow reliance on mail-in-surveys
and door-to-door interviews. An increase
in the number of non-English speakers, undocumented
immigrants, and homeless persons
makes census taking more difficult and residents
will become more diverse and less tolerant of
government intrusion in the future. The American
Statistical Association urged the government
to use scientific sampling surveys to
estimate the population that has been the most
difficult to count.
In preparation for the 2000 census the
bureau conducted a test census in the spring of
1995 at three sites—Paterson, New Jersey; Oakland,
California; and six parishes in northwestern
Louisiana. The sites were selected because of
their ethnic diversity and their large number of
multidwelling housing units. In Paterson the
bureau experimented with a multimedia kiosk,
which allowed residents to answer census questions
by touching a screen. In Oakland all identified
households were sent a census form and
blank forms were also made available at
libraries, post offices, and the STATE DEPARTMENT
of motor vehicles. The bureau also experimented
with using statistical samples from
random surveys to estimate total population.
From these test projects the Census Bureau
announced that it would use statistical sampling
to take into account historically undercounted
populations. These populations included
minorities, renters, children, poor persons, and
illegal ALIENS.Although the American Statistical
Association supported this approach as a valid
methodology, the announcement set off a political
firestorm. Congressional Republicans, worried
that sampling would lead to congressional
APPORTIONMENT that favored the DEMOCRATIC
PARTY, filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality
of the proposed practice.
The Supreme Court, in Commerce Dept. v.
U.S. House of Representatives, 525 U.S. 316, 119
S.Ct.765, 142 L.Ed.2d 797 (1999), ruled, in a 5–4
decision, against the use of statistical sampling,
holding that the 1976 amendments to the Census
Act (1954) prohibit the use of statistical sampling
for purposes of population head counts. Justice
SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR, writing for the majority,
stated that there had been over two hundred
years of history “during which federal census
statutes have uniformly prohibited using statistical
sampling for congressional apportionment.”
The 2000 census revealed that the U.S. population
had grown to approximately 281 million.
There was little public controversy over the
results, a sharp contrast to the 1990 census.
However, one state did file suit in an attempt to
throw out census figures derived from a method
the state considered impermissible sampling.
Utah, noting that its population grew by 30 percent
in ten years, was disappointed it did not
gain another seat in the U.S.House of Representatives.
In reviewing the census data it noted that
the Census Bureau had relied on a statistical
method called imputation to estimate the number
of members of a household that census takers
could not contact after repeated efforts. Utah
discovered that if it could have these imputed
numbers removed from the population count it
would gain a House seat that had been awarded
to North Carolina.
A three-judge panel heard Utah’s lawsuit but
dismissed it at the urging of the Commerce
Department. The panel ruled that the imputation
method was not impermissible under the
1999 Supreme Court decision and that it did not
violate the Constitution’s Census Clause. The
Supreme Court, in Utah v. Evans, 536 U.S. 452,
122 S.Ct. 2191, 153 L.Ed.2d 453 (2002), upheld
the lower court ruling. The Court, in a 5–4 decision,
dismissed Utah’s contention that actual
enumeration under the Census Clause was
intended as a description of the only methodology
for counting U.S. citizens. As for the imputation
method, the Court saw it as different from
sampling: “sampling seeks to extrapolate the features
of a large population from a small one, but
the Bureau’s imputation process sought simply
to fill in missing data as part of an effort to
count individuals one by one.”
The Census Bureau has established at its
website () a portal for
accessing all 2000 census data. The site provides
researchers with tables of data while also providing
the public with breakdowns of data in easily
searchable formats.

FURTHER READINGS
Anderson,Margo J. 1990. The American Census: A Social History.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press.
Katz, Bruce, Robert Lang, and Franklin Raines. 2003.
Redefining Urban and Suburban America: Evidence from
Census 2000.Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.
U.S. Census Bureau. Available online at
(accessed May 28, 2003).

CROSS-REFERENCES
Apportionment.