Make sure you count

By Stuart Rosenthal

It’s 2010, so the once-every-10-years U.S. census can’t be far behind.

Mandated by the U.S. Constitution, the census has the job of counting every single person living in the United States. This is done through a brief questionnaire (this year only 10 short questions) mailed to every household in the country.

Those who don’t respond through the mail are tracked down on foot and asked the questions in person by thousands of temporary census workers.

Though the Census Bureau spends hundreds of millions of dollars attempting to complete this job, it gets tougher and more expensive every year. The mail response rate steadily declined from 1970 to 1980 to 1990, when only 65 percent of forms were returned.

After a $100 million advertising campaign in 2000, the Census Bureau was thrilled to report that they had stanched the ongoing decline. That year they got a 67 percent return. Yippee.

So this year, the census is vastly expanding its ad campaign in an effort to reach groups believed to be traditionally undercounted. These groups include Black, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Asian and what are known as “emerging” groups of residents of the U.S.

Ads are targeted to the minority communities mentioned above, as well as media in 28 foreign languages. In total, 3,653 media outlets throughout the United States are included in the first phase of the advertising campaign.

A small number of those consist of the major dailies and radio stations that have mass reach. But not one of those outlets targets people over the age of 50. And I, for one, am concerned.

My fear is that the Census Bureau and its ad agencies are, perhaps inadvertently, taking steps that will have the effect of “aging down” this year’s census count.

By focusing on immigrant groups that tend to be younger and have more children, while making no special efforts to reach older Americans (who might feel the form is unnecessary or a burden), there could be ramifications for important senior programs.

What kind of ramifications?

Well, besides determining how many seats each state gets in the U.S. House of Representatives, the federal government uses census figures — including populations of every state and Indian tribe and totals of all minority and age groups — to determine how to divvy up $400 billion in federal funds to tribal, state and local governments.

The figures are also used by governments at all levels to make decisions about what community services to provide. For the sake of all current and future government programs that affect older adults, we need to make sure these numbers are correct.

Past censuses have clearly shown that the fastest growing part of the population consists of people over 60.

For example, the last census found that people over 60 in the Washington metro area had grown at a rate twice as fast as the general population from 1990 to 2000. And area residents 85 and over increased at a rate twice as fast as those over 60.

Despite the clear signs of rapid growth, Congress has repeatedly failed to make necessary changes that could put Social Security and Medicare on sounder footing. Each year, these programs come closer to running short of funds to meet the needs of the rapidly aging boomer generation.

And rather than improve the picture for these essential programs, the Administration and both houses of Congress saw fit to call for a reduction of up to $500 billion in planned Medicare reimbursements over the coming decade in order to fund much of the costs of healthcare reform.

It may or may not be intentional, but I fear the effect of the new census campaign will be to shift the traditional “undercount” from young minority groups to older Americans. If it’s intentional, this may be seen as a way to reduce the pressure that’s gradually been building to focus federal and state attention on the needs of our aging society.

Please don’t let it happen! You count, your needs count, and you need to be counted. Be sure you — and every boomer and senior you know — completes the census form and returns it on time.

Stuart Rosenthal is president of the North American Mature Publishers Association, chair of the Maryland Commission on Aging, and publisher of The Beacon Newspapers in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD.