Is the US Census Under Threat?
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2018
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The survey question that could affect the accuracy of its results.
The United States are due to run their next nationwide census in 2020, but already critics are warning that underfunding and proposed question about citizenship could affect the accuracy of its results. We look at the real life consequences if groups choose not to complete the 2020 census, and ask whether the recent politically charged debate is unusual in its two hundred year history.
Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Kate Lamble
Photo: Concerned woman holding a clipboard and a pen Credit: Nicolas McComber/Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.6 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.4 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable |
| 0:14.3 | experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC |
| 0:20.4 | makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:42.0 | We're your guide to the numbers all around you in the |
| 0:45.2 | news and in life, and I'm Tim Harford. Like many countries across the world, every |
| 0:52.3 | ten years the United States completes a census of its population, |
| 0:56.0 | collecting details such as the age, sex and racial background of all its residents. |
| 1:02.0 | The next census isn't due until 2020, two years away, but we're already |
| 1:06.8 | hearing unhappy murmur about the process. The biggest concern of all centers around one particular question. |
| 1:14.0 | In the early part of December, the Department of Justice formally asked the Census Bureau |
| 1:19.7 | to add a question on citizenship in the 2020 census. |
| 1:24.0 | Phil Sparks is the co-director of the Census Project, |
| 1:27.6 | a network of organizations which aims to ensure a fair and accurate census. Groups like his say this one question |
| 1:35.0 | could drastically affect the accuracy of the count |
| 1:38.0 | and have a big impact on American life. |
| 1:41.0 | This would wreck the census accuracy for 2020. |
| 1:44.0 | We are deeply, deeply concerned that it would essentially sabotage efforts to get a fair and accurate count. |
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