The news reports recently have contained stories about the 2020 U.S. Census not reaching everyone. Given my experience with zealous census workers this year, I don’t see how this can be. I’ve had to respond to the Census Bureau four times.
Last April I did my civic duty. When publicity began about the obligation to respond to provide census data, I went to census.gov and filled out the census information. I couldn’t input the identification number from my census card, because I didn’t have my census card yet. But I filled out everything else—all the demographic information on my husband and myself. My online submission was accepted.
A few weeks later, I received a census questionnaire in the mail. It had our address on it . . . Or I should say, our street address, because the zip code was wrong. The questionnaire had been mailed to Zip Code B—the erroneous zip code that the U.S. Postal Service had assigned to our house last year. In their infinite wisdom, USPS did forward the census questionnaire to us at the correct Zip Code A. Yet their error had initiated the zip code fiasco in the first place.
I decided that the best way to correct the Census Bureau’s error was to complete the written questionnaire. I again provided all the demographic information, and in two different places on the questionnaire I wrote that the form had been sent to the wrong zip code and I had already answered these questions online. I didn’t want the Census Bureau to think I was trying to be double-counted. Then I mailed the questionnaire, thinking that would be the end of my dealings with the 2020 census.
But no. Sometime this summer, census workers started showing up at our door. “I’ve already responded,” I told the first one. “Twice.”
“That’s odd,” he said. “You’re listed here as being a non-responder.”
“Check the address,” I suggested. “Do you have me down as living in Zip Code B?”
“Why, yes,” he said.
“And everyone else on your list is in Zip Code A? Including the house next door?”
“Uh-huh.” He seemed dumbfounded. But not as dumbfounded as I had been last year when discovered the Postal Service’s zip code mistake.
I explained the zip code fiasco. I declined to provide him with my census information yet a third time. He handed me a slip of paper with the U.S. Census Bureau’s phone number on it. “Call the main office,” he said, “and explain the problem. That should stop anyone else from coming to talk to you.”
So the next day I called. I explained the problem to the nice census worker on the line. “All I can do is take your information,” she said.
I sighed. “Okay.”
She started reading her questions, straight off the census form. “Are you responding for [my address] at Zip Code B?”
“No,” I said. “There is no such address at Zip Code B.”
“Good enough,” she said, typing in my answer. “Let’s hope that takes care of your problem.” So much for my third response to the Census Bureau—a non-response designed to tell their system it had the wrong zip code.
But census workers kept visiting our house. I shooed three or four more of them away with my saga. Still they came.
Sometime in August, a friendly woman about my age rang our doorbell. I explained again. “Just give me the information,” she said. “That’s the only way to stop the process. I’ll tell them they have the zip code wrong.”
By this time, I was ready to concur. Or concede.
I gave her our demographic information again—what I had first submitted online and then again in the written questionnaire sent to the wrong zip code. And despite my third response when I called the Census Bureau directly to tell them they had the wrong zip code and I couldn’t respond.
Apparently, fourth time is a charm. I haven’t heard back from the census people again. But I don’t know how many times my husband and I have been counted. Nor in what zip code we were counted.
How have you dealt with bureaucratic snafus in the past?
I think I would have slammed the door a lot sooner. You have more patience than I do and perhaps more dedication to the concept. Every 10 years. Wait and see if they get it right in 2030. 😉