October 13, 2016 • 44 mins
Counting humans has been happening for a long, long time. It usually had to do with taxing them, but now census data can reveal a lot about a population and help satisfy its needs. Count us in for this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
and square Space. Make it professional, Make it beautiful. Welcome
to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, and Jerry uh. And this is Stuff you
(00:41):
should Know the podcast. There are one, two, three of us. No,
you just take a census. H You like that? Uh? Yeah,
I thought this is much more interesting than I thought
it would be. It wouldn't take much. I would guess
most people's expectations of the census is that it's awfully boring.
It's not at all. I don't know about the at
(01:04):
all part, but yes, there are plenty of interesting factors
to it that keep it from being awfully boring. Yeah,
I mean, I'm not saying it's Uh, it doesn't get
you jazzed. It's not exciting, but it's interesting to me,
and I'm sure it's exciting to some people people in demography. Yeah,
statistical walks, stat walks, right as we call them stocks.
(01:27):
Oh man, just keep going. Uh yeah, there are plenty
of people who find the sensus amazingly interesting. And that's
who this is for. That's right. We've got twenty twenty
coming up, by the way, which just the name of
it makes it an exciting census. Yeah. So, um, and
I should say we're talking about the American census. There's
(01:48):
sensuces everywhere. Um. Yeah, It's not like every country does
the census all, you know, on a set schedule, but
it's pretty common actually, especially in westernized developed countries, that
a census every ten years, where you literally go out
and one form or another count every single person living
in your country. Yeah. I got a couple of facts
(02:10):
about other countries, but this is largely about the U.
S census, you know, and in the US we do
our census every ten years on years ending in zero.
That's right. I was like, I wonder if everybody does
it like that, And again it's kind of hit or
miss with other countries. But I saw in the UK.
They do it every ten years and years ending in one. Really,
(02:31):
I was like, that's so foreign. Maybe they want to
see what mistakes we make. Actually, probably not, because, as
we'll see, the census starts cranking up a full year
before they even start taking names. Yeah. And actually something
else that surprised me about the UK US census comparison.
(02:53):
We started long before they did. Our modern census started
before the UK's modern census by several decades. I wonder
if they were just like, you know, oh, it's a
bloody good idea. Well, I wonder if they just weren't concerned.
They just looked around and said, there's there's lots of
us and that was good enough enough to rule the world,
(03:13):
all right, So every ten years, like you said, it's
the Commerce Department, Uh, the Census Bureau here in the US.
Here in the US. Oh boy, we're gonna say that
every time. Um, it is in the U s Constitution
goes all the way back to seventeen nine, back when
they were less than four million people, um, four million.
You know, back then they didn't count uh slaves, they
(03:34):
didn't count Native Americans. Uh. I think they did count
slaves in the first one no, no, no no, I'm saying
the four million people. Oh I was not counting those people.
Are you sure? That's what it says, but they I'm
not saying they didn't count them in the census. Um.
It's sadly what that probably means is that they were
(03:56):
not considered people. So there's a whole federalist paper about this.
There's something very famously called the three fifths Compromise. Remember that,
where um, the Southern states were like, hey, you gotta
count the slaves, and the Northern states were like, you
guys treat slaves like property, So no, we're not going
to count them in the census. And there was this
(04:17):
deal struck called the three fifths Compromise where um, slaves
would be counted as three fifths of a person, right, um.
And the whole reason was that the Southern states didn't
want to be overwhelmed by the larger, more populated Northern
states that weren't big on slavery. Because ultimately, as far
as it goes in the United States, when you are
(04:39):
conducting the census, you're trying to figure out how many
representative seats in the House of Representatives each state gets,
and it's done by population. Yeah, and as you'll see,
there are many, many, many, many many other things that
the census helps with these days. But the original two things, uh,
that the census was supposed to do was to see
(05:00):
was fit for the military and available, and to count
people to see how many representatives you got. Those are
the two biggies, right. Well, let's talk about the the
first census. First of all, there were censuses in the Bible,
because census is right, I think, yes, since I know no,
that's a that's a karate instructor. Uh. There were censuses
(05:26):
in the Bible all over the Bible. Um. I remember
reading about them when I was a little kid. Yeah,
you knew all about sentences things, but um I did.
The first there's a little debate on the very first
census is in the North American continent. On the North
American Continent fifteen seventy six. Some claim Spanish King Philip
the two the two the sequel just made that up.
(05:51):
Spanish King Philip to Electric Boogaloo, Uh, that he wanted
information about the colonies, and I think sent American Native
American Indians through what is Mexico now with questions, right,
he hadn't thought it through very well though he sent
them with these questionnaires in Spanish, I imagine, but the
(06:14):
American Indians that he sent down there didn't speak Spanish.
That they apparently were not ones to quit or give
up whenever they faced a hardship because they just created
their own system of hieroglyphics to depict what goods each
town um produced that would be taxed by the King
(06:34):
of Spain. It is awesome. They even drew maps, their
own maps to point out where each town was. They
had no training whatsoever in cartography, and they didn't speak Spanish,
and yet they managed to come up with this apparently
beautifully illustrated census that they delivered to King Philip the second.
That's uh in uh in the Texas State Archives, I
(06:55):
believe today. Yeah, and I have to say this um
our article sites an article from the Prescott Evening Courier
newspaper and it's from nineteen fifty. This article is and
it's pretty interesting, but if you scroll down on the
same page, there's another little article. The headline is agencies
asked to rid offices of sex perverts from nineteen I
(07:20):
wonder what apparently there's a there's a sex pervert Purge
in nineteen I wonder what you have to do in
nineteen fifty to be considered a sex pervert. I read
and it just said proof of sex perversion. So who
knows being gay, um, being a peeping tom or anything,
but sexually assaulting a woman. I'm sure you're a sex pervert. Um.
(07:42):
That's pretty funny. I mean not funny, but you know, interesting. Yes,
other people say the first North American census was in Canada,
back then New France, by Jean ten uh for the
King of France, and Toolon actually went around to all
the houses over the winner of sixty sixty six counted
(08:02):
all fifteen people of European descent. Uh. And then others say, no,
we're gonna officially say the US census was the first
real census. The real first one was in Mexico. The
second first one was in Canada, but the real first
one took place in the United States. Uh. Hundreds of
(08:25):
years later, seventeen ninety George Washington signed it into law,
and in the Constitution is actually just um quote enumeration
of inhabitants end quote. But um as as you'll see
as we go on, there are many many more questions
and things we can glean now, yeah, well than just
the number of people. And now they're starting to get
(08:45):
a little more back to basics. In the two thousand census,
there was a long form one that had like fifty
two questions forget it. Yeah. Most people are like, I'm
not answering this. I think that was probably why they
changed it. Yeah. In two thousand and ten they came
up with a short form one that was sent to
everybody and it was ten questions. Yeah, and as we'll see,
literally three of those questions where how many people are
(09:06):
in your house? The first three questions different ways, Yeah,
because they're like, this is really the one um. I
thought that was kind of funny. Uh. Six d and
fifty U s. Marshals went in nineteen I'm sorry seventeen
ninety for that first census, got on their horses unannounced
and went house to house all over the nation with
their quill pens, scraps of paper literally counting heads um
(09:30):
cost about forty five grand. The two thousand and ten
Since this this surprised me that it shouldn't have thirteen
billion dollars and I thought, no, that's million, but it's billion. Yeah,
And it was actually that was less than they expected
it would call. They came in under budget by one
(09:50):
point six billion, which is pretty good. I hope whoever
was responsible for that made a name for themselves and
a big fat bonus. Oh yeah, I'm sure in the
form of like a h fifty dollar gift bond right
from the U. S. Treasury along bond. By the way, Chuck,
I was like, okay, well, forty five dollars in seventeen ninety.
(10:12):
Obviously it was probably equal to thirteen billion. Nope, not
even close. So West Egg inflation calculator doesn't go far
enough back to sev ninety, but it does go to
eighteen hundred, So in eighteen hundred dollars that forty five
thousand would be sixty five hundred today. So they were efficient. Yeah,
(10:33):
the scraps of paper and yeah, and the horses in
quill pen And says, that's some hard tack chewing tobacky.
Maybe a pot of beans, maybe as you're starting to
get a little extravagant. Uh. That first census um were
the original thirteen states plus districts of Maine, Vermont, Kentucky,
in Tennessee, which was the Southwest Territory at the time.
(10:55):
It's kind of funny Southwest Tennessee. Yeah. Uh. And these
were imagine in order the things that you had to
name on that census, the name of the head of
the household, number of free white males over sixteen, number
of free white males under sixteen, number of free white females,
(11:17):
number of other free persons, and then the number of slaves,
and then the number of sex perverts. Right, that was
the very first one. We'll take a little break and
come back and speed all the way up to eighteen
eighty right after this, mank alright, it's eighteen eighty. Yeah,
(11:55):
didn't that We're back to the future. Three was set?
M M was it? It was somewhere in there We're
living in Deadwood? Did you watch that? I started too,
and I was like, I don't have time for this man. Oh.
Shout out to the great Tim Omenson. He's an actor
on Deadwood and he's the stuff he should know listener.
(12:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, I met him at Podfast Nice. He's
on JV Club uh with me, and he's great. He's
like a real listener. And shout out to Kevin Pollock. Yeah,
who's another stuffy should know listener. We met at pod Fast.
He bum rushed our stage during the middle of our podcast,
which was very surprising. Yeah, that'll eventually be out right.
That's right. It's weird, is it? Kevin Pollock just surreal.
(12:40):
He was very sweet after. He was like, man, I
really am a fan guys like enough to come and
watch you. And he brought along Wayne Fetterman, a great
writer and comic who also as a listener. I didn't
get to meet him. Yeah, I talked to him afterward
about the Beatles and uh, obviously he had met our
shows coming out on Monty Python and he had met
(13:01):
Eric Idle the day before our podcast. Wow is that crazy? Yeah,
the universe was circling him. He was the drain. That's right.
So Kevin Pollock and his fiancee, Hello, Wayne Fetterman, Howdy,
Tim Omenson, good day, so nice and Tim, by the way,
is on that show Gallivant, which is no longer around
(13:22):
but you can catch on Netflix. This is great. Um
medieval musical show that, like the network was actually brave
enough to make really cool. It was cop Rock but
said in Medieval Times. Yeah, but good well cop Rock
wasn't good. I didn't see it. I didn't either I
was under the impression that was the same thing that
it was, like, Um, this is a musical cop procedural.
(13:45):
What is this doing on television? Get off? It had
nothing to do with whether it was good or not.
It was just two weird you know. Anyway, thanks to
those people and all the non celebrities who came. Sure,
everybody who came. Yeah, we don't want to just you
have to have a big name for us to be
a appreciative that you came and saw our stinky, stupid episode.
Of course not all right, So I picked up in
(14:06):
eighteen eighty Deadwood is what sidetracked me. And that's when
they actually started using trained workers to work in the census, right,
not just phoedo marshals with their pots of beans. Uh.
And then about ten years later they actually had the
first machine to help them count their information, which was
primitive but useful. Dude. It was a computer. Yeah, the U. S.
(14:28):
Census Bureau has this unsung history of basically being the
first to use computers. Right, Yes, So they had this
machine that they built. I didn't see a name for it,
but basically it was a tabulating machine. So starting in
the eighteen nineties, Census, the census takers, who again, like
you said, we're now trained individuals. They were trained to
(14:50):
punch a hole into the response, right, how many people
under the age of sixteen in this house? Four? They
punch a hole wherever the four was right hanging Chad's
pretty much. That's why you wanted to make sure the
hole punched all the way through, so you wouldn't have
a hanging chats. Um. And when they turned in these cards,
they could feed them into this tabulator that would make
(15:14):
note of which hole was punched and in store this information.
It was a computer that the Census Bureau was using.
It was a steampunk computer pretty much. Yeah. It was
operated by Will Smith. Um was that wild Wild West? Boy?
What a stinker? Did you see the TV show that
it was based on the back in the day? That
(15:35):
was great? Yeah, what an imaginative TV show that was. Um.
So they'd used the real computers. Um. Starting in nineteen fifty,
the Census Bureau ordered one called the Univac. It's one
of those things that's huge and takes up a room
as mini machines working as one like the Whopper. Uh.
And then in two thousand and ten they finally introduced
(15:58):
GPS devices, and I was kind of didn't really understand
why until I read the next three sentences. I stopped
for a second. That's a weird thing to say. But
there were mistakes up to five of people counted when
SENSUS takers were doing this all by hand with paper
maps would assign people five percent of people to the
(16:20):
wrong congressional district accidentally. Did I say purpose way? Okay, Yeah,
I just wanted to make sure that they were cleared
of any wrongdoings, right, It was all a mistake. Uh.
And now with these GPS coordinating devices, they have a
point zero five error rate, which is a lot better
than five point zero very much. Um. Yeah, so jerrymandering
(16:44):
will be that much more difficult. We hope we need
to do an episode, and we should also say, since
we're talking about our episodes, if if you love this stuff,
go listen to our population episode where we talked a
lot about SENSUS taking. Uh and our maps episode will
really get your engine revving for real if you're a
(17:05):
g I S geek right or a stock right or so.
The Bureau works with the National Processing Center, uh, and
they have you know, it's not just like let me
take this form and look at it and write it down.
Like it's very automated these days, and um, pretty advanced.
(17:26):
What they do to ensure its accuracy, well at at
very least thorough Yeah, Like they take a picture of
every single finished questionnaire. Yeah, so there's an image file
of every single one. Okay, I'd say that, Well, that's
not advanced, but that's inch and toward advanced there, like
hold stale please uh and then uh they have um
(17:48):
a Scantron computer. Basically it's like that computer, but a
little more advanced. But it does the same thing optical
mark recognition. So like you fill in the bubble boom,
this computers on top of it a little more advanced. Yeah,
but it's the same principle. Yeah, but then it gets
super advanced I c R. Yeah, intelligent character recognition. And
(18:14):
isn't that just I mean that's something that reads people's handwriting, right.
And remember we did our another episode, the USPS one
on the post Office. It was a great episode, especially
those of you who here are stamps dot com ads
and think we hate the post Office. Go listen to
our USPS episode, which is basically an homage to the
(18:35):
Post Office by stamps dot com, so um that they
use the same thing for mail. Right, they have computers
that can read people's hand writing, and then there's a
there's a secondary process to where with the computers like
I don't know what this is, there's a human that
gets a little like a picture of it and they
type in what it is, and then they have a
(18:57):
q A department to finish it all out. Yeah, it's uh,
I think they do like a dent of any kind
of um of any kind of human data stuff they
go back and double check. That's right. Until nineteen sixty,
the census was pretty much a door to door affair.
This is so dumb and that what that? It was?
Door to door. Yes, there's too many people by this time. Yeah,
(19:21):
I agree. Yeah, we're talking tens hundreds of millions of people. Yeah.
But then they decided, all right, here's what we should do.
Let's mail these out to people, have them fill it out,
send it back, and we will just have to count
to uh the chucks of the world who do not
fill it out and send it back. Oh yeah, you
don't fill it out. Huh. I didn't fill it out, Um,
(19:42):
not on purpose. It just got away from me. You know, Chuck,
you just confess to a federal crime. I know, right, seriously, Yeah,
it's technically against the law. Hundred and eighty million people
in nineteen sixty Oh yeah, yeah, that is crazy to
count them all. Yeah, I did not feel it out.
I think you should. Now, well I'm going I'm a will. No,
(20:04):
you have to do it for two to know. They
found me. They came to my home. Oh okay, I
got you. Yeah, I just didn't fill it out and
send it in. Um, you didn't chase him oy with
a crossbow. Shall we talk about that? No? No, I'm
getting ahead of us. Um boy, that's a good tease though.
If people like Tod just just say crossbow. We did
an episode on crossbows too. Yeah. That one wasn't very good.
(20:27):
Oh yeah, yeah that was fine, just thin. Yeah, it
was a long time ago, though. They were thinner than
it was better than Jackhammers. Oh gosh, we should have
an episode where you just talk about all our stinkers.
That's pretty much every episode. So um se In the
two thousand and ten census returned those census forms so
(20:49):
not bad, and the remaining U twenty six of people
had to be counted by the one point four million
workers that are broken down into war categories. Right, there
was like of that one point four million, like almost
six hundred thousand of them. Where the people who actually
went out onto the streets and said, hey, you didn't
(21:13):
send in your form. What's your problem? Don't you love America?
You're called enumerators. Yeah. They're also administrators who basically manage
the divisions, uh Statticians, they check their math. And the
demographers like you were talking about, who totally walk out
on all those numbers. Yeah, they're the ones who take
(21:35):
these numbers because think about it, we're talking about ten questions,
the first three of which are how many people live
in your house? Right? Um? And these guys can basically
sus um some pretty interesting information from just information like that.
They can they can predict the future, they can call
(21:57):
the lotto numbers, they can do all sorts. If you
have a neighbor that's a demographer, you want to make
friends with them because they can make you very wealthy. Josh,
why would you take part in a census? Why is
it a big deal? Well, again, first of all, to
not take part of breaking the law, Chuck. But aside
from that, umure there's actually a lot that's done with
(22:17):
the census. So, yes, it's figuring out who, uh, which
states get how many seats in the House of Representatives. Um.
It's also figuring out where people live, their double checking
that their addresses on file. They have a national database
of all the addresses in the United States, every single address,
(22:38):
and they're going back and double checking all of them
as part of the census. But ultimately they're figuring out
what to do with about four hundred billion dollars in
state aid, state and local aid that the federal government
distributes every year. Yeah, so every every census equals a
(23:00):
out four trillion dollars worth of aid UM and how
it's going to be allocated. That's what the census figures
are used for in part. Yeah. So if you're like, well,
I don't want to take that stupid thing, but I
like my roads to be service and I like to
have that fire station nearby, and I want to make
sure there's a good school that can house all the
(23:21):
students that live here. And I want there to be
a senior center for mom and dad. Yeah, and boy
would be nice if there was a public library kind
of closer to me, right, and it would kill you
to put in the hearties. Kind of true though, because
private the private sector uses census numbers to determine where
to open the hearties. But just hearties, yeah, no, but
(23:45):
maybe where to open up a factory plant or something.
I mean, there are many, many, many things that the
census will satisfy that will help you out to make
sure that you have everything around you that you need
to for a healthy community. Right. Plus that, Um, those
maps again are really important because usually nine eleven emergency
(24:06):
services use census maps to to basically move around the area. Uh.
And if you're worried about your privacy, Um, it is
held private for seventy two years this information. Yeah, and
a lot of people are like whatever, sensus takers are
blabb or mouths. Actually, they are sworn to protect your privacy.
(24:32):
That's part of their job, no matter what. Like this
is anonymous, right Um. And secondly, well I shouldn't say
it's anonymous. It's sealed. This information is sealed. It's between
you and the census taker. Um. And then uh, secondly,
they face a really stiff penalty if they do share
your information with anybody, whether it's um, they're best friend
(24:56):
they're l O l ng about your stupid answers um
or with like say, any sort of welfare services or
law enforcement. I believe they're not allowed to share any information.
The cops can't can't use the census to track people down.
The military can't use it, uh what, the I R
s can't use it, Immigration can't use it. So it's
(25:18):
a five year of prison penalty and two d and
fifty grand, So it's pretty serious business. Yeah, if they
break that that um Yeah, and they figure seventy two years.
It seemed like a weird number to me, but it
is a weird number. I guess they were like, you know,
if you get counted in a census and by the
time seventy two years later rolled around, it might be
dead or you don't care. It probably has some sort
(25:38):
of freemasonic numerological uh substance to it. You know. Yeah,
I can see that. But what's neat about it? Though, Chuck?
If you ever need to prove your age or where
you lived or anything like that, you can write the
census be and be like, I know this is under
wraps for seventy two years, but I need proof that
(25:59):
I I'm saying I am who I am, Please provide
me with a sheet. And since this bureau provides a
letter on your behalf saying this person lived at this
place at this time, our guys counted him. Pretty cool. Yeah,
should we take a break, let's chuck, all right, we'll
come back and we'll talk a little bit about how
(26:20):
this whole thing actually works. Chuck, I want to go
(26:43):
on record also saying when I say guys, I'm using
it in a completely gender neutral sense. Yeah, we say
guys a lot. Some people don't like that, I know,
I mean a gender neutral e I know. But the
same people who don't like that also don't like the
fact that you're using it general neutraally, you know. Hm hmm,
(27:04):
I see what you mean. But uh, let's get back
to censusing UM in two thousand and ten, Like I
said earlier, they started hiring people. The work begins on
the census a couple of years beforehand, right, that's the
easiest way to say it. Start recruiting people to work
UM about January of the census year is when they
(27:29):
start actually counting people in Alaska. Yeah, that's where the
sense of starts for a while. Since Yeah, and it
makes sense why oh, because the about the time that
the census really gets started, the rural Alaska experiences the
spring thaw or the breakup, and travel becomes very tough
(27:52):
and everybody leaves home to go do other stuff because
they've been cooped up in their their house. The whole pointer. Yeah,
I U it was, I mean, it was a very
sensible reason. I thought it was just some like cool
old tradition. It's pretty new, actually, yeah, exactly. So they
start in Alaska, they actually count people there. Then in
that's just sort of a let's get Alaska taken care of, right,
(28:14):
and then we can move on to other things. So
in February they send forms in advance to rural areas
where these forms have to be delivered by hand. Then
in March you're gonna the other folks receiver letter saying
since this is coming, get excited pretty much. Yeah, and
(28:36):
they just have to sit around and wait for the
census letter to come after that. Yeah. But what you
do is with that up that since this has coming letter,
it gives you the option of how you want what
language you want to get your senses in, which is Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese,
and Russian or a Spanish English edition English. Yeah, and
(28:59):
then in mid March the actual forms are mailed. There's
a hundred and twenty million residences in the US. Yeah.
And you know, one thing that really stood out to
me when I was reading this, as we'll get into
this stuff here in a second, is how many different
ways there are too live in the United States. Yeah. Yeah,
(29:23):
there's a um there's a thing called the residents Rule
that the Census Bureau had to come to terms with,
and apparently every census they have like a public hearing
on the residents rule and if it needs to change
or include other stuff. But it basically says where you
spend most of your time sleeping, where you sleep the
(29:45):
most is considered your residence as far as the census goes.
Even if you have another permanent residence. If you are
sleeping under an overpass, that overpass counts as your residence
during the census. Yeah, and I just thought, like, yeah,
you go to the houses, go the apartments in the condos,
(30:06):
and like what else is there overpasses? I mean there's dormitories.
Dormitories like where college students live. Yeah, yeah, they get counted. There.
There are homes for senior living. It's just a living homes. Yes,
there are prisons, Yeah, they get counted there, there are.
You might live in a boat at a marina, counted there.
(30:27):
You might live on an aircraft carrier counted there. Um.
What else, shelters, trailer parks yeah so um. One of
the things that the Census Bureau has gotten kind of
good at is making contact with local social service agencies,
local nonprofit organizations and saying, where do your um, like
transient populations like say, migrant workers, UM, undocumented immigrants, homeless people,
(30:53):
where do they live? Um? Can you take us to
them so we can count them? Because again, they're trying
to count every single person who lives in the United States,
whether they are here legally or illegally, UM, whether they
live in a car or whether they live in a mansion.
They're trying to count every single person. And some of
(31:13):
it's super easy. Again, they send a hundred and twenty
million UM census forms out to the residences. That's the
easy part. The hard part is going and finding people
who have these non traditional residences, hotels, people who live
in in weekly hotels. They've got to count them. And
one of the confounding factors of the whole thing, Chuck is,
(31:35):
Let's say you're your your son is away in college
or prison, right, You're probably gonna be tempted to say, well,
he's gonna be back eventually. This is his home, this
is permanent address. The Census Bureau constantly has to fight
with that and be like no, no, no, like like,
don't count them. They live in prison or they live
in college, which could be college or prison. You know. Uh,
(32:02):
A lot of people that fill out these forms don't
speak English like enough to fill out the form, and
they may not even know to ask for the bilingual form.
So they actually have um online guides and fifty nine languages,
telephone assistants in six languages, and thirty three thousand in
person assistant centers across the US that are staffed, and
(32:26):
I think very wisely, the Census Bureau realized that a
lot of those households where the heads of household don't
speak or write or read English very well may have
kids who do speak English and read and write English
very well and could actually help their parents with this.
So they started in two thousand ten especially a big
(32:48):
push to the schools to to get kids like jazzed
about the census and basically teach them how to talk
to their parents about it and how to fill out
these forms with their parents. Yeah, they send them a
litt kit, a little fun kit, complete with like, you know, coloring,
color these kind of Uh. So back to the year.
(33:10):
How the year shakes out? Uh. Completed forms are due
by April one of the year, and May through July,
they are coming the streets looking for those people who
didn't fell out the forms and looking for the people,
like you said, in all these non traditional homes. I
guess we'll call them um or if they don't have homes,
(33:31):
just non traditional places where people dwell. Uh. And then
July through December they are analyzing all that data, and
by December thirty one they are required by law to
report the new um apportionment numbers to the President for
the congressional seats. And then they have till April the
(33:52):
following year for all the data collection to be sussed out.
So it's a long you know, it's a year's long process. Us.
What is that and two and a half or three
years to complete a census. Yeah, that's just the actual census.
Then there's also the work of I guess with every census,
you're also putting the last census that was seventy two
(34:17):
years old up on the internet now or it used
to be on microfilm, now it's up on the internet.
So the Census Bureau is always always working. Yeah. We
forgot one group of people that really cracked me up. Carney's. Yeah,
they mentioned Carney's in here. You gotta count them. Yeah,
traveling got to catch up with him first. Yeah, imagine
(34:39):
Carney's probably aren't since its friendly. You never know. I'm
sure it depends on the Carney. Can't pigeonhold them? You're right,
even if you're a pigeon. It's a long standing motto here,
don't pigeonhold the Carney. That's a t shirt. So, um,
on the actual form, like you said, it's gotten a
lot shorter of these days. And we kind of joked
(35:02):
a few times about the fact that the first three
questions are who's living there? But um, here's how it
breaks down is how many people live in the household?
Question number two, were there any additional people staying here
on April one that you did not include in question one?
And finally, question number three says just name everyone in
(35:22):
the household. They really want to make sure they get
that correct. You're also gonna have to fill out things
about your your gender, your age, your race, what kind
of Hispanic origin, perhaps your relationship to the head of
the household. The actually Alaskan Native tribes are not very
(35:44):
happy right now because apparently in the census they will
be asked, um, are you a member of an Alaskan
Native tribe? If so, what tribe? And they're like, well,
what business of this is yours? You know, they're not
very happy about this whole thing, And it's that was
the newest thing I heard about the census is going
on right now. Well, you gotta roll with the times.
(36:05):
Um in two thousand they started allowing more than one
race to be selected, and that got me thinking about
gender identity and if the US was gonna do anything
like that in like sixty years. Probably I haven't seen
anything for this next one, but I did see that
Australia and the United States, I'm sorry, Australia and UH
and the UK have both planned to include gender identity
(36:29):
options in the next census, so but ahead of the
curve from the US, no surprise. UH. In Australia actually is.
People are mad there this year because apparently previous to
this UM they're they're doing their census right now. I
think in and prior to this one, you didn't have
(36:52):
all the connecting information was optional, identifying information, like you
didn't have to put things like I guess it's just
different than the US, like uh, your address and stuff
like that. You didn't have to connect. I think they
were literally discounting people. And before Christmas last year they
sent out a press release saying that it's no longer optional.
(37:13):
All this information identifying information is gonna be collected and
stored in perpetuity, including things like your name, where you live,
how much money you make, and stuff like that, and
a lot of people got really ticked off, and they
said that's leading to or they predicted it would lead
to a lot of people just lying and giving a
bunch of garbage data and that's supposed to be on
the census. Yeah. I thought they were starting to move
(37:36):
more towards the model of UM, including questions like that
on that American Community survey. Well this is Australia, so gotcha. Yeah. Sorry,
I think the way I read it was that previous
to this year, it was just kind of counting heads. Yeah,
that's that's very invasive. Yeah, you could optionally fill that
stuff in, but now they're they're saying you have to,
you have to. So who knows. And then we kind
(38:00):
of teased earlier about people about a crossbow. Yeah, there's
a competing theories on what kind of job census taker is. Right.
Some people say it's a great job. It's very flexible. Um,
it pays in some places, like twelve dollars plus an
hour you get to right off the mileage you put
(38:22):
on your car. Great job out on the street's fresh air.
Other people say it's an extremely dangerous job and one
that the Census Bureau tends to downplay despite the fact
that they're like hundreds of incidents of um census takers
being threatened or attacked, uh, just doing their job. Senseless
(38:44):
sensus violence. Right. Yeah, And the crossboat guy in particular
is a guy in Marion, Ohio who had like a
no trespassing sign posted on his property and a picture
of a crossbow. Right. If you're a census taker, that's
meaning that the legal that doesn't have anything to do
with you. You're basically a deputized federal agent carrying out
(39:05):
your your business, and you are allowed to walk up
on somebody's property even if they have no trespassing signs posted. Well,
the guy in Marion, Ohio, UM said, Hey, I would
like you guys to leave, by the way. I have
a machine gun here. And uh. They started to leave,
and he wanted, I guess to make sure that they
(39:25):
did leave, so he escorted them down his driveway holding
his crossbow, not necessarily in any kind of threatening manner
holding it, but just holding it. And apparently no charges
were pressed against the guy. I guess he did everything right,
but there's apparently I was reading this article in the
Seattle Times. I wonder if they were just like, we'll
just put you down for one right, He's like, don't
(39:47):
do that, because that guarantee that guy lives alone. Um,
this this article from two ten in the Seattle Times.
Since his workers didn't count on such an angry reception.
And I'm sure this makes it sound way worse than
it is. Well, they said most people were great, but um,
but this is a collection of all the worst horror stories,
which makes it an interesting article. Plus two thousands ten
(40:09):
wasn't it all depends on the year right, some is
in a great time. Like people weren't loving the government
in Some people directly cited that they didn't want to
help Obama out, so they weren't going to do the census. Um.
One like people were attacked by dogs. One person was
attacked with a baseball bat. Another census taker had a
(40:31):
patio table thrown at her by an irate woman. Um,
there was just a lot of incidents like that. It
was mostly anti government, right, Yes, people feeling out, you know,
get out of my face with the government stuff. Right,
And and some some people didn't make any threats, but yeah,
they were really in sense that the government was asking
(40:53):
anything about them like that. And um, these census workers
were like this is crazy, Like people are really mad
out there. They came back with like news of the
real temperament of a lot of Americans, and it was angry.
Some of them quit. They're like, I'm not doing this
anymore than I'm risking my life for what the census.
Who cares. Um, it's an interesting article. It gives you
(41:16):
like a different perspective of it than that, Yeah, we're
gonna allocate money to government services. Well, I'm sure by
everyone in the United States will love the government. Sure, sure,
regardless of who wins the two thousand and sixteen election.
That's right. Yeah, you got anything else? Nothing? Sweet? Well,
if you wanted more about sense s I, you can
(41:36):
type sens us into the search bar at how stuff
works dot com. And since I said sentience sent since
I said sens us, it's time for a listener mail. Alright,
I'm gonna call this. Uh we helped with anxiety. Good.
Hey guys want to write and say how much you
have impacted my life. My name is Jared. I'm a
(41:57):
graphic designer in Birmingham, Alabama, and grew up in Cannes, Saw, Georgia. Wow,
his family had to own a gun by law. Remember
that that's still in the books there. I wonder if
Jared was at our show in Birmingham that ended up being,
despite the smallest show, we did one of my most
pleasured noble shows. Well put pleasured. That was great. That
(42:21):
little theater was awesome. It was the workplace theater cabaret style.
They were great, intimate and cool. I felt like people
are sitting on the stage with us virtually they practically were.
Uh So, anyway, he's in Birmingham, have a horrible panic
attacks guys in a panic disorder. There's just something about
both of you, though, your demeanors and the tone of
your voices that really calms me down in the car
(42:44):
or at work, which is where most of my panic
attacks take place. I know, I feelful. I don't know
if any other anxiety suffers also experienced your show in
this way. A lot of time, when I feel my
anxiety rising, I pop in the headphones or plug you
into my car stereo and calm myself down with some stuff.
You should know. Uh, your show is greatly impacted my life, uh,
(43:06):
in its relationship to anxiety. I love you guys, love
the show. I always want to keep getting the word
out about anxiety and taking away the stigma of mental illness.
You guys do a great job, that is Jared A
humble fan. Jared wrote back today, so he was very
happy that we were reading this. I'm good and I'm
glad that we can calm you down a little bit.
But for Jared, yeah, I hate to hear about your troubles,
(43:29):
and there always going to be here for you every
Tuesday and Thursday. Don't worry, UM if you have a
story like Jared's, if we've helped you in some way,
shape or form. We love hearing stuff like that. You
can tweet it to us at s y SK podcast
or to me josh Um Clark Uh. You can post
(43:49):
it on Facebook Charles W. Chuck Bryant, or Facebook dot
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(44:09):
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(00:21):
and square Space. Make it professional, Make it beautiful. Welcome
to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, and Jerry uh. And this is Stuff you
(00:41):
should Know the podcast. There are one, two, three of us. No,
you just take a census. H You like that? Uh? Yeah,
I thought this is much more interesting than I thought
it would be. It wouldn't take much. I would guess
most people's expectations of the census is that it's awfully boring.
It's not at all. I don't know about the at
(01:04):
all part, but yes, there are plenty of interesting factors
to it that keep it from being awfully boring. Yeah,
I mean, I'm not saying it's Uh, it doesn't get
you jazzed. It's not exciting, but it's interesting to me,
and I'm sure it's exciting to some people people in demography. Yeah,
statistical walks, stat walks, right as we call them stocks.
(01:27):
Oh man, just keep going. Uh yeah, there are plenty
of people who find the sensus amazingly interesting. And that's
who this is for. That's right. We've got twenty twenty
coming up, by the way, which just the name of
it makes it an exciting census. Yeah. So, um, and
I should say we're talking about the American census. There's
(01:48):
sensuces everywhere. Um. Yeah, It's not like every country does
the census all, you know, on a set schedule, but
it's pretty common actually, especially in westernized developed countries, that
a census every ten years, where you literally go out
and one form or another count every single person living
in your country. Yeah. I got a couple of facts
(02:10):
about other countries, but this is largely about the U.
S census, you know, and in the US we do
our census every ten years on years ending in zero.
That's right. I was like, I wonder if everybody does
it like that, And again it's kind of hit or
miss with other countries. But I saw in the UK.
They do it every ten years and years ending in one. Really,
(02:31):
I was like, that's so foreign. Maybe they want to
see what mistakes we make. Actually, probably not, because, as
we'll see, the census starts cranking up a full year
before they even start taking names. Yeah. And actually something
else that surprised me about the UK US census comparison.
(02:53):
We started long before they did. Our modern census started
before the UK's modern census by several decades. I wonder
if they were just like, you know, oh, it's a
bloody good idea. Well, I wonder if they just weren't concerned.
They just looked around and said, there's there's lots of
us and that was good enough enough to rule the world,
(03:13):
all right, So every ten years, like you said, it's
the Commerce Department, Uh, the Census Bureau here in the US.
Here in the US. Oh boy, we're gonna say that
every time. Um, it is in the U s Constitution
goes all the way back to seventeen nine, back when
they were less than four million people, um, four million.
You know, back then they didn't count uh slaves, they
(03:34):
didn't count Native Americans. Uh. I think they did count
slaves in the first one no, no, no no, I'm saying
the four million people. Oh I was not counting those people.
Are you sure? That's what it says, but they I'm
not saying they didn't count them in the census. Um.
It's sadly what that probably means is that they were
(03:56):
not considered people. So there's a whole federalist paper about this.
There's something very famously called the three fifths Compromise. Remember that,
where um, the Southern states were like, hey, you gotta
count the slaves, and the Northern states were like, you
guys treat slaves like property, So no, we're not going
to count them in the census. And there was this
(04:17):
deal struck called the three fifths Compromise where um, slaves
would be counted as three fifths of a person, right, um.
And the whole reason was that the Southern states didn't
want to be overwhelmed by the larger, more populated Northern
states that weren't big on slavery. Because ultimately, as far
as it goes in the United States, when you are
(04:39):
conducting the census, you're trying to figure out how many
representative seats in the House of Representatives each state gets,
and it's done by population. Yeah, and as you'll see,
there are many, many, many, many many other things that
the census helps with these days. But the original two things, uh,
that the census was supposed to do was to see
(05:00):
was fit for the military and available, and to count
people to see how many representatives you got. Those are
the two biggies, right. Well, let's talk about the the
first census. First of all, there were censuses in the Bible,
because census is right, I think, yes, since I know no,
that's a that's a karate instructor. Uh. There were censuses
(05:26):
in the Bible all over the Bible. Um. I remember
reading about them when I was a little kid. Yeah,
you knew all about sentences things, but um I did.
The first there's a little debate on the very first
census is in the North American continent. On the North
American Continent fifteen seventy six. Some claim Spanish King Philip
the two the two the sequel just made that up.
(05:51):
Spanish King Philip to Electric Boogaloo, Uh, that he wanted
information about the colonies, and I think sent American Native
American Indians through what is Mexico now with questions, right,
he hadn't thought it through very well though he sent
them with these questionnaires in Spanish, I imagine, but the
(06:14):
American Indians that he sent down there didn't speak Spanish.
That they apparently were not ones to quit or give
up whenever they faced a hardship because they just created
their own system of hieroglyphics to depict what goods each
town um produced that would be taxed by the King
(06:34):
of Spain. It is awesome. They even drew maps, their
own maps to point out where each town was. They
had no training whatsoever in cartography, and they didn't speak Spanish,
and yet they managed to come up with this apparently
beautifully illustrated census that they delivered to King Philip the second.
That's uh in uh in the Texas State Archives, I
(06:55):
believe today. Yeah, and I have to say this um
our article sites an article from the Prescott Evening Courier
newspaper and it's from nineteen fifty. This article is and
it's pretty interesting, but if you scroll down on the
same page, there's another little article. The headline is agencies
asked to rid offices of sex perverts from nineteen I
(07:20):
wonder what apparently there's a there's a sex pervert Purge
in nineteen I wonder what you have to do in
nineteen fifty to be considered a sex pervert. I read
and it just said proof of sex perversion. So who
knows being gay, um, being a peeping tom or anything,
but sexually assaulting a woman. I'm sure you're a sex pervert. Um.
(07:42):
That's pretty funny. I mean not funny, but you know, interesting. Yes,
other people say the first North American census was in Canada,
back then New France, by Jean ten uh for the
King of France, and Toolon actually went around to all
the houses over the winner of sixty sixty six counted
(08:02):
all fifteen people of European descent. Uh. And then others say, no,
we're gonna officially say the US census was the first
real census. The real first one was in Mexico. The
second first one was in Canada, but the real first
one took place in the United States. Uh. Hundreds of
(08:25):
years later, seventeen ninety George Washington signed it into law,
and in the Constitution is actually just um quote enumeration
of inhabitants end quote. But um as as you'll see
as we go on, there are many many more questions
and things we can glean now, yeah, well than just
the number of people. And now they're starting to get
(08:45):
a little more back to basics. In the two thousand census,
there was a long form one that had like fifty
two questions forget it. Yeah. Most people are like, I'm
not answering this. I think that was probably why they
changed it. Yeah. In two thousand and ten they came
up with a short form one that was sent to
everybody and it was ten questions. Yeah, and as we'll see,
literally three of those questions where how many people are
(09:06):
in your house? The first three questions different ways, Yeah,
because they're like, this is really the one um. I
thought that was kind of funny. Uh. Six d and
fifty U s. Marshals went in nineteen I'm sorry seventeen
ninety for that first census, got on their horses unannounced
and went house to house all over the nation with
their quill pens, scraps of paper literally counting heads um
(09:30):
cost about forty five grand. The two thousand and ten
Since this this surprised me that it shouldn't have thirteen
billion dollars and I thought, no, that's million, but it's billion. Yeah,
And it was actually that was less than they expected
it would call. They came in under budget by one
(09:50):
point six billion, which is pretty good. I hope whoever
was responsible for that made a name for themselves and
a big fat bonus. Oh yeah, I'm sure in the
form of like a h fifty dollar gift bond right
from the U. S. Treasury along bond. By the way, Chuck,
I was like, okay, well, forty five dollars in seventeen ninety.
(10:12):
Obviously it was probably equal to thirteen billion. Nope, not
even close. So West Egg inflation calculator doesn't go far
enough back to sev ninety, but it does go to
eighteen hundred, So in eighteen hundred dollars that forty five
thousand would be sixty five hundred today. So they were efficient. Yeah,
(10:33):
the scraps of paper and yeah, and the horses in
quill pen And says, that's some hard tack chewing tobacky.
Maybe a pot of beans, maybe as you're starting to
get a little extravagant. Uh. That first census um were
the original thirteen states plus districts of Maine, Vermont, Kentucky,
in Tennessee, which was the Southwest Territory at the time.
(10:55):
It's kind of funny Southwest Tennessee. Yeah. Uh. And these
were imagine in order the things that you had to
name on that census, the name of the head of
the household, number of free white males over sixteen, number
of free white males under sixteen, number of free white females,
(11:17):
number of other free persons, and then the number of slaves,
and then the number of sex perverts. Right, that was
the very first one. We'll take a little break and
come back and speed all the way up to eighteen
eighty right after this, mank alright, it's eighteen eighty. Yeah,
(11:55):
didn't that We're back to the future. Three was set?
M M was it? It was somewhere in there We're
living in Deadwood? Did you watch that? I started too,
and I was like, I don't have time for this man. Oh.
Shout out to the great Tim Omenson. He's an actor
on Deadwood and he's the stuff he should know listener.
(12:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, I met him at Podfast Nice. He's
on JV Club uh with me, and he's great. He's
like a real listener. And shout out to Kevin Pollock. Yeah,
who's another stuffy should know listener. We met at pod Fast.
He bum rushed our stage during the middle of our podcast,
which was very surprising. Yeah, that'll eventually be out right.
That's right. It's weird, is it? Kevin Pollock just surreal.
(12:40):
He was very sweet after. He was like, man, I
really am a fan guys like enough to come and
watch you. And he brought along Wayne Fetterman, a great
writer and comic who also as a listener. I didn't
get to meet him. Yeah, I talked to him afterward
about the Beatles and uh, obviously he had met our
shows coming out on Monty Python and he had met
(13:01):
Eric Idle the day before our podcast. Wow is that crazy? Yeah,
the universe was circling him. He was the drain. That's right.
So Kevin Pollock and his fiancee, Hello, Wayne Fetterman, Howdy,
Tim Omenson, good day, so nice and Tim, by the way,
is on that show Gallivant, which is no longer around
(13:22):
but you can catch on Netflix. This is great. Um
medieval musical show that, like the network was actually brave
enough to make really cool. It was cop Rock but
said in Medieval Times. Yeah, but good well cop Rock
wasn't good. I didn't see it. I didn't either I
was under the impression that was the same thing that
it was, like, Um, this is a musical cop procedural.
(13:45):
What is this doing on television? Get off? It had
nothing to do with whether it was good or not.
It was just two weird you know. Anyway, thanks to
those people and all the non celebrities who came. Sure,
everybody who came. Yeah, we don't want to just you
have to have a big name for us to be
a appreciative that you came and saw our stinky, stupid episode.
Of course not all right, So I picked up in
(14:06):
eighteen eighty Deadwood is what sidetracked me. And that's when
they actually started using trained workers to work in the census, right,
not just phoedo marshals with their pots of beans. Uh.
And then about ten years later they actually had the
first machine to help them count their information, which was
primitive but useful. Dude. It was a computer. Yeah, the U. S.
(14:28):
Census Bureau has this unsung history of basically being the
first to use computers. Right, Yes, So they had this
machine that they built. I didn't see a name for it,
but basically it was a tabulating machine. So starting in
the eighteen nineties, Census, the census takers, who again, like
you said, we're now trained individuals. They were trained to
(14:50):
punch a hole into the response, right, how many people
under the age of sixteen in this house? Four? They
punch a hole wherever the four was right hanging Chad's
pretty much. That's why you wanted to make sure the
hole punched all the way through, so you wouldn't have
a hanging chats. Um. And when they turned in these cards,
they could feed them into this tabulator that would make
(15:14):
note of which hole was punched and in store this information.
It was a computer that the Census Bureau was using.
It was a steampunk computer pretty much. Yeah. It was
operated by Will Smith. Um was that wild Wild West? Boy?
What a stinker? Did you see the TV show that
it was based on the back in the day? That
(15:35):
was great? Yeah, what an imaginative TV show that was. Um.
So they'd used the real computers. Um. Starting in nineteen fifty,
the Census Bureau ordered one called the Univac. It's one
of those things that's huge and takes up a room
as mini machines working as one like the Whopper. Uh.
And then in two thousand and ten they finally introduced
(15:58):
GPS devices, and I was kind of didn't really understand
why until I read the next three sentences. I stopped
for a second. That's a weird thing to say. But
there were mistakes up to five of people counted when
SENSUS takers were doing this all by hand with paper
maps would assign people five percent of people to the
(16:20):
wrong congressional district accidentally. Did I say purpose way? Okay, Yeah,
I just wanted to make sure that they were cleared
of any wrongdoings, right, It was all a mistake. Uh.
And now with these GPS coordinating devices, they have a
point zero five error rate, which is a lot better
than five point zero very much. Um. Yeah, so jerrymandering
(16:44):
will be that much more difficult. We hope we need
to do an episode, and we should also say, since
we're talking about our episodes, if if you love this stuff,
go listen to our population episode where we talked a
lot about SENSUS taking. Uh and our maps episode will
really get your engine revving for real if you're a
(17:05):
g I S geek right or a stock right or so.
The Bureau works with the National Processing Center, uh, and
they have you know, it's not just like let me
take this form and look at it and write it down.
Like it's very automated these days, and um, pretty advanced.
(17:26):
What they do to ensure its accuracy, well at at
very least thorough Yeah, Like they take a picture of
every single finished questionnaire. Yeah, so there's an image file
of every single one. Okay, I'd say that, Well, that's
not advanced, but that's inch and toward advanced there, like
hold stale please uh and then uh they have um
(17:48):
a Scantron computer. Basically it's like that computer, but a
little more advanced. But it does the same thing optical
mark recognition. So like you fill in the bubble boom,
this computers on top of it a little more advanced. Yeah,
but it's the same principle. Yeah, but then it gets
super advanced I c R. Yeah, intelligent character recognition. And
(18:14):
isn't that just I mean that's something that reads people's handwriting, right.
And remember we did our another episode, the USPS one
on the post Office. It was a great episode, especially
those of you who here are stamps dot com ads
and think we hate the post Office. Go listen to
our USPS episode, which is basically an homage to the
(18:35):
Post Office by stamps dot com, so um that they
use the same thing for mail. Right, they have computers
that can read people's hand writing, and then there's a
there's a secondary process to where with the computers like
I don't know what this is, there's a human that
gets a little like a picture of it and they
type in what it is, and then they have a
(18:57):
q A department to finish it all out. Yeah, it's uh,
I think they do like a dent of any kind
of um of any kind of human data stuff they
go back and double check. That's right. Until nineteen sixty,
the census was pretty much a door to door affair.
This is so dumb and that what that? It was?
Door to door. Yes, there's too many people by this time. Yeah,
(19:21):
I agree. Yeah, we're talking tens hundreds of millions of people. Yeah.
But then they decided, all right, here's what we should do.
Let's mail these out to people, have them fill it out,
send it back, and we will just have to count
to uh the chucks of the world who do not
fill it out and send it back. Oh yeah, you
don't fill it out. Huh. I didn't fill it out, Um,
(19:42):
not on purpose. It just got away from me. You know, Chuck,
you just confess to a federal crime. I know, right, seriously, Yeah,
it's technically against the law. Hundred and eighty million people
in nineteen sixty Oh yeah, yeah, that is crazy to
count them all. Yeah, I did not feel it out.
I think you should. Now, well I'm going I'm a will. No,
(20:04):
you have to do it for two to know. They
found me. They came to my home. Oh okay, I
got you. Yeah, I just didn't fill it out and
send it in. Um, you didn't chase him oy with
a crossbow. Shall we talk about that? No? No, I'm
getting ahead of us. Um boy, that's a good tease though.
If people like Tod just just say crossbow. We did
an episode on crossbows too. Yeah. That one wasn't very good.
(20:27):
Oh yeah, yeah that was fine, just thin. Yeah, it
was a long time ago, though. They were thinner than
it was better than Jackhammers. Oh gosh, we should have
an episode where you just talk about all our stinkers.
That's pretty much every episode. So um se In the
two thousand and ten census returned those census forms so
(20:49):
not bad, and the remaining U twenty six of people
had to be counted by the one point four million
workers that are broken down into war categories. Right, there
was like of that one point four million, like almost
six hundred thousand of them. Where the people who actually
went out onto the streets and said, hey, you didn't
(21:13):
send in your form. What's your problem? Don't you love America?
You're called enumerators. Yeah. They're also administrators who basically manage
the divisions, uh Statticians, they check their math. And the
demographers like you were talking about, who totally walk out
on all those numbers. Yeah, they're the ones who take
(21:35):
these numbers because think about it, we're talking about ten questions,
the first three of which are how many people live
in your house? Right? Um? And these guys can basically
sus um some pretty interesting information from just information like that.
They can they can predict the future, they can call
(21:57):
the lotto numbers, they can do all sorts. If you
have a neighbor that's a demographer, you want to make
friends with them because they can make you very wealthy. Josh,
why would you take part in a census? Why is
it a big deal? Well, again, first of all, to
not take part of breaking the law, Chuck. But aside
from that, umure there's actually a lot that's done with
(22:17):
the census. So, yes, it's figuring out who, uh, which
states get how many seats in the House of Representatives. Um.
It's also figuring out where people live, their double checking
that their addresses on file. They have a national database
of all the addresses in the United States, every single address,
(22:38):
and they're going back and double checking all of them
as part of the census. But ultimately they're figuring out
what to do with about four hundred billion dollars in
state aid, state and local aid that the federal government
distributes every year. Yeah, so every every census equals a
(23:00):
out four trillion dollars worth of aid UM and how
it's going to be allocated. That's what the census figures
are used for in part. Yeah. So if you're like, well,
I don't want to take that stupid thing, but I
like my roads to be service and I like to
have that fire station nearby, and I want to make
sure there's a good school that can house all the
(23:21):
students that live here. And I want there to be
a senior center for mom and dad. Yeah, and boy
would be nice if there was a public library kind
of closer to me, right, and it would kill you
to put in the hearties. Kind of true though, because
private the private sector uses census numbers to determine where
to open the hearties. But just hearties, yeah, no, but
(23:45):
maybe where to open up a factory plant or something.
I mean, there are many, many, many things that the
census will satisfy that will help you out to make
sure that you have everything around you that you need
to for a healthy community. Right. Plus that, Um, those
maps again are really important because usually nine eleven emergency
(24:06):
services use census maps to to basically move around the area. Uh.
And if you're worried about your privacy, Um, it is
held private for seventy two years this information. Yeah, and
a lot of people are like whatever, sensus takers are
blabb or mouths. Actually, they are sworn to protect your privacy.
(24:32):
That's part of their job, no matter what. Like this
is anonymous, right Um. And secondly, well I shouldn't say
it's anonymous. It's sealed. This information is sealed. It's between
you and the census taker. Um. And then uh, secondly,
they face a really stiff penalty if they do share
your information with anybody, whether it's um, they're best friend
(24:56):
they're l O l ng about your stupid answers um
or with like say, any sort of welfare services or
law enforcement. I believe they're not allowed to share any information.
The cops can't can't use the census to track people down.
The military can't use it, uh what, the I R
s can't use it, Immigration can't use it. So it's
(25:18):
a five year of prison penalty and two d and
fifty grand, So it's pretty serious business. Yeah, if they
break that that um Yeah, and they figure seventy two years.
It seemed like a weird number to me, but it
is a weird number. I guess they were like, you know,
if you get counted in a census and by the
time seventy two years later rolled around, it might be
dead or you don't care. It probably has some sort
(25:38):
of freemasonic numerological uh substance to it. You know. Yeah,
I can see that. But what's neat about it? Though, Chuck?
If you ever need to prove your age or where
you lived or anything like that, you can write the
census be and be like, I know this is under
wraps for seventy two years, but I need proof that
(25:59):
I I'm saying I am who I am, Please provide
me with a sheet. And since this bureau provides a
letter on your behalf saying this person lived at this
place at this time, our guys counted him. Pretty cool. Yeah,
should we take a break, let's chuck, all right, we'll
come back and we'll talk a little bit about how
(26:20):
this whole thing actually works. Chuck, I want to go
(26:43):
on record also saying when I say guys, I'm using
it in a completely gender neutral sense. Yeah, we say
guys a lot. Some people don't like that, I know,
I mean a gender neutral e I know. But the
same people who don't like that also don't like the
fact that you're using it general neutraally, you know. Hm hmm,
(27:04):
I see what you mean. But uh, let's get back
to censusing UM in two thousand and ten, Like I
said earlier, they started hiring people. The work begins on
the census a couple of years beforehand, right, that's the
easiest way to say it. Start recruiting people to work
UM about January of the census year is when they
(27:29):
start actually counting people in Alaska. Yeah, that's where the
sense of starts for a while. Since Yeah, and it
makes sense why oh, because the about the time that
the census really gets started, the rural Alaska experiences the
spring thaw or the breakup, and travel becomes very tough
(27:52):
and everybody leaves home to go do other stuff because
they've been cooped up in their their house. The whole pointer. Yeah,
I U it was, I mean, it was a very
sensible reason. I thought it was just some like cool
old tradition. It's pretty new, actually, yeah, exactly. So they
start in Alaska, they actually count people there. Then in
that's just sort of a let's get Alaska taken care of, right,
(28:14):
and then we can move on to other things. So
in February they send forms in advance to rural areas
where these forms have to be delivered by hand. Then
in March you're gonna the other folks receiver letter saying
since this is coming, get excited pretty much. Yeah, and
(28:36):
they just have to sit around and wait for the
census letter to come after that. Yeah. But what you
do is with that up that since this has coming letter,
it gives you the option of how you want what
language you want to get your senses in, which is Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese,
and Russian or a Spanish English edition English. Yeah, and
(28:59):
then in mid March the actual forms are mailed. There's
a hundred and twenty million residences in the US. Yeah.
And you know, one thing that really stood out to
me when I was reading this, as we'll get into
this stuff here in a second, is how many different
ways there are too live in the United States. Yeah. Yeah,
(29:23):
there's a um there's a thing called the residents Rule
that the Census Bureau had to come to terms with,
and apparently every census they have like a public hearing
on the residents rule and if it needs to change
or include other stuff. But it basically says where you
spend most of your time sleeping, where you sleep the
(29:45):
most is considered your residence as far as the census goes.
Even if you have another permanent residence. If you are
sleeping under an overpass, that overpass counts as your residence
during the census. Yeah, and I just thought, like, yeah,
you go to the houses, go the apartments in the condos,
(30:06):
and like what else is there overpasses? I mean there's dormitories.
Dormitories like where college students live. Yeah, yeah, they get counted. There.
There are homes for senior living. It's just a living homes. Yes,
there are prisons, Yeah, they get counted there, there are.
You might live in a boat at a marina, counted there.
(30:27):
You might live on an aircraft carrier counted there. Um.
What else, shelters, trailer parks yeah so um. One of
the things that the Census Bureau has gotten kind of
good at is making contact with local social service agencies,
local nonprofit organizations and saying, where do your um, like
transient populations like say, migrant workers, UM, undocumented immigrants, homeless people,
(30:53):
where do they live? Um? Can you take us to
them so we can count them? Because again, they're trying
to count every single person who lives in the United States,
whether they are here legally or illegally, UM, whether they
live in a car or whether they live in a mansion.
They're trying to count every single person. And some of
(31:13):
it's super easy. Again, they send a hundred and twenty
million UM census forms out to the residences. That's the
easy part. The hard part is going and finding people
who have these non traditional residences, hotels, people who live
in in weekly hotels. They've got to count them. And
one of the confounding factors of the whole thing, Chuck is,
(31:35):
Let's say you're your your son is away in college
or prison, right, You're probably gonna be tempted to say, well,
he's gonna be back eventually. This is his home, this
is permanent address. The Census Bureau constantly has to fight
with that and be like no, no, no, like like,
don't count them. They live in prison or they live
in college, which could be college or prison. You know. Uh,
(32:02):
A lot of people that fill out these forms don't
speak English like enough to fill out the form, and
they may not even know to ask for the bilingual form.
So they actually have um online guides and fifty nine languages,
telephone assistants in six languages, and thirty three thousand in
person assistant centers across the US that are staffed, and
(32:26):
I think very wisely, the Census Bureau realized that a
lot of those households where the heads of household don't
speak or write or read English very well may have
kids who do speak English and read and write English
very well and could actually help their parents with this.
So they started in two thousand ten especially a big
(32:48):
push to the schools to to get kids like jazzed
about the census and basically teach them how to talk
to their parents about it and how to fill out
these forms with their parents. Yeah, they send them a
litt kit, a little fun kit, complete with like, you know, coloring,
color these kind of Uh. So back to the year.
(33:10):
How the year shakes out? Uh. Completed forms are due
by April one of the year, and May through July,
they are coming the streets looking for those people who
didn't fell out the forms and looking for the people,
like you said, in all these non traditional homes. I
guess we'll call them um or if they don't have homes,
(33:31):
just non traditional places where people dwell. Uh. And then
July through December they are analyzing all that data, and
by December thirty one they are required by law to
report the new um apportionment numbers to the President for
the congressional seats. And then they have till April the
(33:52):
following year for all the data collection to be sussed out.
So it's a long you know, it's a year's long process. Us.
What is that and two and a half or three
years to complete a census. Yeah, that's just the actual census.
Then there's also the work of I guess with every census,
you're also putting the last census that was seventy two
(34:17):
years old up on the internet now or it used
to be on microfilm, now it's up on the internet.
So the Census Bureau is always always working. Yeah. We
forgot one group of people that really cracked me up. Carney's. Yeah,
they mentioned Carney's in here. You gotta count them. Yeah,
traveling got to catch up with him first. Yeah, imagine
(34:39):
Carney's probably aren't since its friendly. You never know. I'm
sure it depends on the Carney. Can't pigeonhold them? You're right,
even if you're a pigeon. It's a long standing motto here,
don't pigeonhold the Carney. That's a t shirt. So, um,
on the actual form, like you said, it's gotten a
lot shorter of these days. And we kind of joked
(35:02):
a few times about the fact that the first three
questions are who's living there? But um, here's how it
breaks down is how many people live in the household?
Question number two, were there any additional people staying here
on April one that you did not include in question one?
And finally, question number three says just name everyone in
(35:22):
the household. They really want to make sure they get
that correct. You're also gonna have to fill out things
about your your gender, your age, your race, what kind
of Hispanic origin, perhaps your relationship to the head of
the household. The actually Alaskan Native tribes are not very
(35:44):
happy right now because apparently in the census they will
be asked, um, are you a member of an Alaskan
Native tribe? If so, what tribe? And they're like, well,
what business of this is yours? You know, they're not
very happy about this whole thing, And it's that was
the newest thing I heard about the census is going
on right now. Well, you gotta roll with the times.
(36:05):
Um in two thousand they started allowing more than one
race to be selected, and that got me thinking about
gender identity and if the US was gonna do anything
like that in like sixty years. Probably I haven't seen
anything for this next one, but I did see that
Australia and the United States, I'm sorry, Australia and UH
and the UK have both planned to include gender identity
(36:29):
options in the next census, so but ahead of the
curve from the US, no surprise. UH. In Australia actually is.
People are mad there this year because apparently previous to
this UM they're they're doing their census right now. I
think in and prior to this one, you didn't have
(36:52):
all the connecting information was optional, identifying information, like you
didn't have to put things like I guess it's just
different than the US, like uh, your address and stuff
like that. You didn't have to connect. I think they
were literally discounting people. And before Christmas last year they
sent out a press release saying that it's no longer optional.
(37:13):
All this information identifying information is gonna be collected and
stored in perpetuity, including things like your name, where you live,
how much money you make, and stuff like that, and
a lot of people got really ticked off, and they
said that's leading to or they predicted it would lead
to a lot of people just lying and giving a
bunch of garbage data and that's supposed to be on
the census. Yeah. I thought they were starting to move
(37:36):
more towards the model of UM, including questions like that
on that American Community survey. Well this is Australia, so gotcha. Yeah. Sorry,
I think the way I read it was that previous
to this year, it was just kind of counting heads. Yeah,
that's that's very invasive. Yeah, you could optionally fill that
stuff in, but now they're they're saying you have to,
you have to. So who knows. And then we kind
(38:00):
of teased earlier about people about a crossbow. Yeah, there's
a competing theories on what kind of job census taker is. Right.
Some people say it's a great job. It's very flexible. Um,
it pays in some places, like twelve dollars plus an
hour you get to right off the mileage you put
(38:22):
on your car. Great job out on the street's fresh air.
Other people say it's an extremely dangerous job and one
that the Census Bureau tends to downplay despite the fact
that they're like hundreds of incidents of um census takers
being threatened or attacked, uh, just doing their job. Senseless
(38:44):
sensus violence. Right. Yeah, And the crossboat guy in particular
is a guy in Marion, Ohio who had like a
no trespassing sign posted on his property and a picture
of a crossbow. Right. If you're a census taker, that's
meaning that the legal that doesn't have anything to do
with you. You're basically a deputized federal agent carrying out
(39:05):
your your business, and you are allowed to walk up
on somebody's property even if they have no trespassing signs posted. Well,
the guy in Marion, Ohio, UM said, Hey, I would
like you guys to leave, by the way. I have
a machine gun here. And uh. They started to leave,
and he wanted, I guess to make sure that they
(39:25):
did leave, so he escorted them down his driveway holding
his crossbow, not necessarily in any kind of threatening manner
holding it, but just holding it. And apparently no charges
were pressed against the guy. I guess he did everything right,
but there's apparently I was reading this article in the
Seattle Times. I wonder if they were just like, we'll
just put you down for one right, He's like, don't
(39:47):
do that, because that guarantee that guy lives alone. Um,
this this article from two ten in the Seattle Times.
Since his workers didn't count on such an angry reception.
And I'm sure this makes it sound way worse than
it is. Well, they said most people were great, but um,
but this is a collection of all the worst horror stories,
which makes it an interesting article. Plus two thousands ten
(40:09):
wasn't it all depends on the year right, some is
in a great time. Like people weren't loving the government
in Some people directly cited that they didn't want to
help Obama out, so they weren't going to do the census. Um.
One like people were attacked by dogs. One person was
attacked with a baseball bat. Another census taker had a
(40:31):
patio table thrown at her by an irate woman. Um,
there was just a lot of incidents like that. It
was mostly anti government, right, Yes, people feeling out, you know,
get out of my face with the government stuff. Right,
And and some some people didn't make any threats, but yeah,
they were really in sense that the government was asking
(40:53):
anything about them like that. And um, these census workers
were like this is crazy, Like people are really mad
out there. They came back with like news of the
real temperament of a lot of Americans, and it was angry.
Some of them quit. They're like, I'm not doing this
anymore than I'm risking my life for what the census.
Who cares. Um, it's an interesting article. It gives you
(41:16):
like a different perspective of it than that, Yeah, we're
gonna allocate money to government services. Well, I'm sure by
everyone in the United States will love the government. Sure, sure,
regardless of who wins the two thousand and sixteen election.
That's right. Yeah, you got anything else? Nothing? Sweet? Well,
if you wanted more about sense s I, you can
(41:36):
type sens us into the search bar at how stuff
works dot com. And since I said sentience sent since
I said sens us, it's time for a listener mail. Alright,
I'm gonna call this. Uh we helped with anxiety. Good.
Hey guys want to write and say how much you
have impacted my life. My name is Jared. I'm a
(41:57):
graphic designer in Birmingham, Alabama, and grew up in Cannes, Saw, Georgia. Wow,
his family had to own a gun by law. Remember
that that's still in the books there. I wonder if
Jared was at our show in Birmingham that ended up being,
despite the smallest show, we did one of my most
pleasured noble shows. Well put pleasured. That was great. That
(42:21):
little theater was awesome. It was the workplace theater cabaret style.
They were great, intimate and cool. I felt like people
are sitting on the stage with us virtually they practically were.
Uh So, anyway, he's in Birmingham, have a horrible panic
attacks guys in a panic disorder. There's just something about
both of you, though, your demeanors and the tone of
your voices that really calms me down in the car
(42:44):
or at work, which is where most of my panic
attacks take place. I know, I feelful. I don't know
if any other anxiety suffers also experienced your show in
this way. A lot of time, when I feel my
anxiety rising, I pop in the headphones or plug you
into my car stereo and calm myself down with some stuff.
You should know. Uh, your show is greatly impacted my life, uh,
(43:06):
in its relationship to anxiety. I love you guys, love
the show. I always want to keep getting the word
out about anxiety and taking away the stigma of mental illness.
You guys do a great job, that is Jared A
humble fan. Jared wrote back today, so he was very
happy that we were reading this. I'm good and I'm
glad that we can calm you down a little bit.
But for Jared, yeah, I hate to hear about your troubles,
(43:29):
and there always going to be here for you every
Tuesday and Thursday. Don't worry, UM if you have a
story like Jared's, if we've helped you in some way,
shape or form. We love hearing stuff like that. You
can tweet it to us at s y SK podcast
or to me josh Um Clark Uh. You can post
(43:49):
it on Facebook Charles W. Chuck Bryant, or Facebook dot
com slash stuff you Should Know. You can put it
in an email stuff podcast that how stuff works dot
com and has always joined us at home on the
way up. Stuff you Should Know dot com For more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
(44:09):
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