Stuff You Should Know - How the Census Works

Episode Date: October 13, 2016

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

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Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Tuck Bryant and Jerry and this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast. There are one, two, three of us. Oh, you just took a census, huh? You like that? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I thought this was much more interesting

than I thought it would be. 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 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... It doesn't get you jazzed. It's not exciting, but it's interesting to me. I'm sure it's exciting to some people. Yeah. People in demography? Yeah, statistical wonks, stat wonks. Right, as we call them, stonks.

Oh, man, just keep going. Yeah, there are plenty of people who find the census amazingly interesting and that's who this is for. That's right. We've got 2020 coming up, by the way, which just the name of it makes it an exciting census. The 2020 census?

Yeah, yeah. So, and I should say, we're talking about the American census. There's censuses everywhere. Yeah. It's not like every country does a census on a set schedule, but it's pretty common, actually, especially in westernized developed countries to do a census every 10 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 about other countries, but this is largely about the US census. Okay. You know? And in the US, we do our census every 10 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 10 years in years ending in one. Really? I was like, that is so foreign. Maybe they want to see what mistakes we make.

Actually, probably not, because as we'll see, the census starts cranking up the full year before they even start taking names. Yeah, and actually, something else that surprised me about the UK-US census comparison, 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, that's a bloody good idea. Well, I wonder if they just weren't concerned. They just looked around and said, there's lots of us. And that was good enough. Enough to rule the world. Sure. All right, so every 10 years, like you said,

is the Commerce Department, the Census Bureau. Here in the US. Here in the US? Oh boy, we're gonna say that every time. It is in the US Constitution, goes all the way back to 1790, back when there were less than 4 million people. 4 million back then, they didn't count slaves, they didn't count Native Americans.

I think they did count slaves in the first one. No, no, no, I'm saying the 4 million people. Oh, okay. Was not counting those people. Are you sure? That's what it says. Okay. But I'm not saying they didn't count them in the census.

I got you, okay. It's sadly what that probably means is they were not considered people. So there's a whole Federalist paper about this. There's something very famously called the three fifths compromise. Oh yeah. Remember that?

I've heard of that, yeah. Where 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 gonna count them in the census. And there was this deal struck called the three fifths compromise

where slaves would be counted as three fifths of a person. Wow, right? 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 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 a 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 that the census was supposed to do

was to see who was fit for the military and available and to count people to see how many representatives you got. Those are the two biggies. Well, let's talk about the first census. Well, first of all, there were censuses in the Bible. The census is right? I think yes. Since I?

No. No, that's a karate instructor. Censipod? There were censuses in the Bible, all over the Bible. I remember reading about them when I was a little kid. Yeah, you knew all about censuses, didn't you? But I did. There's a little debate on the very first censuses

in the North American continent, on the North American continent. Yeah. 1576, some claim, Spanish King Philip II. The II? Mm-hmm, the sequel. I just made that up. Spanish King Philip II, electric boo boo boo.

The Deuce? The Deuce. He said that he wanted information about the colonies and I think sent Native American Indians through, what is Mexico now, with questions. Right, he hadn't thought it through very well though. No. He sent them with these questionnaires.

In Spanish, I imagine. But the American Indians that he sent down there didn't speak Spanish. Correct. 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 produced

that would be taxed by the King of Spain. That's awesome. It is awesome. They even drew maps, their own maps, to point out where each town was. Right. 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 II. That's in the Texas State Archives, I believe, today. Oh, wow. Yeah, and I have to say, our article cites an article from the Prescott Evening Courier newspaper and it's from 1950, 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 1950? Yeah. Wow.

I wonder what you had to do. Apparently there was a sex pervert purge in 1950 of government agencies. I wonder what you have to do in 1950 to be considered a sex pervert. I read and it just said proof of sex perversion. So who knows? Being gay, being a peeping Tom.

Or it could mean you. Anything but sexually assaulting a woman, I'm sure. You were a sex pervert. That's pretty funny. I mean, not funny, but you know. Interesting. Yes. Yeah.

Other people say the first North American census was in Canada back then, New France, by Jean Telon for the King of France. And Telon actually went around to all the houses over the winter of 65, 66. Counted all 3215 people of European descent. And then others say no. We're gonna officially say the US census

was the first real census. Right. Even though I don't believe this. 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. Hundreds of years later. 1790, George Washington signed it into law.

And in the Constitution, it's actually just quote, enumeration of inhabitants, end quote. But as you'll see as we go on, there are many, many more questions and things we can glean now. Yeah, well. Other than just the number of people. And now they're starting to get

a little more back to basics. Oh yeah. In the 2000 census, there was a long form one that had like 52 questions. Forget it. Yeah, most people are like, I'm not answering this. I think that was probably where they changed it. Yeah, in 2010, they came up with a short form one

that was sent to everybody and it was 10 questions. Yeah, and as we'll see, literally three of those questions were how many people are in your house. Yeah, the first three questions. Ask different ways. Yeah, because they're like, this is really the one. Right.

Um, I thought that was kind of funny. Yeah. 650 US Marshals went in 1790 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. Costs about 45 grand.

The 2010 census, this surprised me that it shouldn't have. 13 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 cost. Yeah, they came in under budget by 1.6 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 $50 gift bond. Right. From the US Treasury. A long bond. By the way, Chuck, I was like, okay,

well $45,000 in 1790, obviously, was probably equal to 13 billion. Nope, not even close. So West Egg Inflation Calculator doesn't go far enough back to 1790, but it does go to 1800. So in $1800, that 45,000 would be 632,500 today. Oh wow, so they were efficient on those horses.

Yeah, the scraps of paper and yeah, and the horses and quill pens, that's it. Some hard tack, chewin' the backy. Maybe a pot of beans. Maybe, as you're starting to get a little extravagant. That first census were the original 13 states plus districts of Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee, which was the Southwest Territory at the time.

It's kind of funny. Southwest. Yeah, Tennessee. Yeah. And these were, imagine in order, the things that you had to name on that census. Name of the head of the household, number of free white males over 16,

number of free white males under 16, number of free white females, number of other free persons, and then the number of slaves. And then the number of sex perverts. All right, that was the very first one. We'll take a little break and come back and Speed all the way up to 1880,

we'll run after this. Man. The 90's called David Lacher and Christine Taylor. Stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody,

about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And it's like, gosh, I love the shock. All right, it's 1880. Yeah, and then we're back to the future.

Three was set. Was it? It was somewhere in there. We're living in Deadwood. Did you watch that? I started to, and I was like, I don't have time for this. Oh, man. Oh, shout out to the great Tim Omonson.

He's an actor on Deadwood, and he's a stuff you should know listener. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I met him at PodFest. Nice. He was on JV Club with me, and he's great. He's like a real listener. Nice.

And shout out to Kevin Pollock. Yeah, who's another stuff you should know listener. We met at PodFest. 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 was weird.

It was like Kevin Pollock just came up on stage. It was kind of surreal. 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 Federman, a great writer in comic, who also is a listener. I didn't get to meet him.

Yeah, I talked to him afterward about The Beatles. And he had met, our show's coming out on Monty Python, and he had met Eric Idle the day before our podcast. Wow. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, the universe was circling him. He was the drain. That's right.

So Kevin Pollock and his fiance, hello. Wayne Federman, howdy. Tim Omenson, good day, sir. Nice. And Tim, by the way, is on that show, Galavant, which is no longer around, but you can catch on Netflix. This is great medieval musical show that a network is actually brave enough to make.

Yeah. It was really cool. It was Cop Rock, but set in medieval times. Yeah, but good. Right. Well, Cop Rock wasn't good? No, I didn't see it. I didn't either.

Yeah, okay. It was under the impression that it was the same thing, that it was like, this is a musical cop procedural. What is this doing on television? Get off. It had nothing to do with whether it was good or not. It was just too 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 don't have to have a big name for us to be appreciative that you came and saw our stinky, stupid episode. Of course not. All right, so I picked up in 1880, Deadwood is what sidetracked me,

and that's when they actually started using trained workers to work in the census. Right, not just federal marshals with their pots of beans. Yeah. And then about 10 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 US Census Bureau has this unsung history of basically being the first to use computers, right? Yes. 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 1890 census, the census takers, who again, like you said, were now trained individuals, they were trained to punch a hole into their response, right? Yeah. How many people under the age of 16 in this house? Four, they'd punch a hole wherever the four was, right?

Hanging chads. Pretty much. Yeah. That's why you wanted to make sure the hole punched all the way through so you wouldn't have a hanging chat. That's right. And when they turned in these cards, they could feed them into this tabulator

that would make note of which hole was punched and store this information. It was a computer that the Census Bureau was using in 1890. Yeah, it was a steampunk computer. Pretty much, yeah. It was operated by Will Smith. Was that Wild Wild West? Yeah.

Oh boy, what a snicker. Did you see the TV show that it was based on though, back in the day? Yeah. That was great. What an imaginative TV show that was. Agreed. So they've used the real computers.

Starting in 1950, the Census Bureau ordered one called the Univac. It's one of those things that's huge and takes up a room. There's many machines working as one. Right. Like the Whopper. And then in 2010, they finally introduced 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 5% of people counted when Census takers were doing this all by hand with paper maps would assign 5% of people to the wrong congressional district. Accidentally.

Did I say purposefully? No. Oh, OK. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure that they were cleared of any wrong doings. Right. It was all a mistake. And now with these GPS coordinating devices,

they have a 0.05 error rate, which is a lot better than 5.0. Very much. Yeah. So gerrymandering will be that much more difficult, we hope. We need to do an episode. She is just about to say that for sure. And we should also say, since we're talking about our episodes, if you love this stuff, go listen to our population episode

where we talked a lot about Census taking and our maps episode. We'll really get your engine revving. Yeah. For real. If you're a GIS geek. Right, or a stonk. Right, or a skit. So the Bureau works with the National Processing Center.

And they have a, 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 pretty advanced what they do to ensure its accuracy. Well, at the 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. OK, I'd say that, well, that's not advanced, but that's inch and toward advanced. They're like, hold still, please. And then they have a Scantron computer, basically. It's like that 1890 computer, but a little more advanced. But it does the same thing. Yeah, optical mark recognition.

Right. So like, you fill in the bubble. Yep. Boom, this computer's on top of it. A little more advanced. Yeah, but it's the same principle. Yeah, but then it gets super advanced. ICR.

Yeah. Intelligent character recognition. And isn't that just, I mean, that's something that reads people's handwriting? Right, and remember we did another episode, the USPS one on the post office? Yep. It was a great episode.

Especially those of you who hear our stamps.com ads and think we hate the post office, go listen to our USPS episode, which is basically an homage to the post office. Yeah, brought to you by stamps.com. So they use the same thing for mail, right? They have computers that can read people's handwriting. Oh, that's right.

And then there's a secondary process to where with the computer's like, I don't know what this is. There's a human that gets a little picture of it and they type in what it is. That's right, yeah. And then they have a QA department to finish it all out. Yeah, I think they do like 100% of any kind of human data stuff.

They go back and double check. That's right. Until 1960, the census was pretty much a door-to-door affair. This is so dumb. And then what, that it was door-to-door? Yes, there's too many people by this time. Yeah, 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 who 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.

Not on purpose. It just got away from me. You know, Chuck, you just confessed to a federal crime. I know, right? Seriously? Yeah, it's technically against the law. 180 million people in 1960. Oh, wow.

Yeah, that is crazy. Yeah. To count them all. Yeah, I did not fill it out. I think you should now. Well, I will for 2020. No, you have to do it for 2010, too. No, they found me.

They came to my home. Oh, oh, okay, I got you. Yeah, I just didn't fill it out and send it in. You didn't chase them away with a crossbow? Well, should we talk about that? No, no, I'm getting ahead of us. Oh, okay, sorry. Boy, that's a good tease, though.

People like to Josh just say crossbow. We did an episode on crossbows, too. Yeah, that one wasn't very good. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was fine. It was 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 we just talk about all our stinkers. That's pretty much every episode. So, 74% in the 2010 census returned those census forms. So, not bad. And the remaining 26% of people had to be counted

by the 1.4 million workers that are broken down into four categories. Right, there was like of that 1.4 million, like almost 600,000 of them were the people who actually went out onto the streets and said, hey, you didn't send in your form, what's your problem? Don't you love America? They're called enumerators.

Yeah, yeah. They're also administrators who basically manage the division's statisticians. 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 these numbers because think about it, we're talking about 10 questions,

the first three of which are how many people live in your house, right? Yeah. And these guys can basically suss some pretty interesting information from just information like that. Yeah. They can predict the future.

They can call the Lotto numbers. They can do all sorts. If you have a neighbor that's a demographer, you wanna make friends with them. Yes, that's right. 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 is breaking the law, Chuck. But aside from that, the big picture. There's actually a lot that's done with the census. So yes, it's figuring out who, which states get how many seats in the House of Representatives. Correct.

It's also figuring out where people live. They're double checking that their address is on file. They have a national database of all the addresses in the United States, every single address. Yeah. And they're going back and double checking all of them as part of the census. Yep.

But ultimately, they're figuring out what to do with about $400 billion in state aid, state and local aid that the federal government distributes every year. Yeah. So every census equals about $4 trillion worth of aid 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 wanna take that stupid thing, but I like my roads to be serviced and I like to have that fire station nearby. And I wanted to make sure there's a good school that can house all the students that live here. Right. And I want there to be a senior center for mom and dad.

Yeah. And boy, it'd be nice if there was a public library kind of closer to me. Right. And would it kill you to put in a hearty? Kind of true though, because the private sector uses census numbers to determine where to open the hearties.

Right. But just hearties. Yeah. No, but maybe where to open up a factory plant or something. Sure, yeah. 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 for a healthy community. Right, plus that those maps again are really important because usually 9-11 emergency services use census maps to basically move around the area. And if you're worried about your privacy, it is held private for 72 years, this information. Yeah, and a lot of people are like, whatever,

census takers are blabbermouths. Actually, they are sworn to protect your privacy. Yep. That's part of their job, no matter what. Like, this is anonymous, right? And secondly, why shouldn't say it's anonymous? It's sealed. This information is sealed.

It's between you and the census taker. Right. And then secondly, they face a really stiff penalty if they do share your information with anybody, whether it's their best friend, their LOLing about your stupid answers, or with, like, say, any sort of welfare services or law enforcement, I believe. They're not allowed to share any information with anybody.

Like, the cops can't use the census to track people down. Right. The military can't use it. The IRS can't use it. Immigration can't use it. Yeah. So it's a five-year prison penalty and $250,000. So it's pretty serious business.

Yeah, they break that confidence. Yeah, and they figure 72 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 72 years later rolls around, it might be dead or you don't care. It probably has some sort of free masonic numerological

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 live or anything like that, you can write the Census Bureau and be like, I know this is under wraps for 72 years, but I need proof that I'm saying I am who I am. Right.

Please provide me with a sheet. And the Census Bureau provides a letter on your behalf saying this person lived at this place at this time. Our guy 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 this whole thing actually works. Let's see what we can do about it. Let's see what we can do about it. Let's see what we can do about it. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude,

bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars,

friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you.

Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy.

You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And inside this box, you'll have one shock.

Chuck, I want to go on record also as 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 it gender neutrally. I know. But the same people who don't like that also don't like the fact

that you're using it gender neutrally, you know? Hmm, hmm, I see what you mean. But uh, let's get back to censicing. Oh, OK. In 2010, 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. About January 25th of the census year is when they start actually counting people in Alaska. Yeah. And that's where the census starts for a while. Since 1990, I think? Yeah. And it makes sense.

Why? Oh, because about the time that the census really gets started, the rural Alaska experiences the spring thaw or the breakup and travel becomes very tough. Yeah. And everybody leaves home to go do other stuff because they've been cooped up in their house the whole winter. Yeah, I thought it was a good idea to do that.

Yeah, I thought it was, I mean, it was a very sensible reason. I thought it was just some like cool old tradition. That's pretty new, actually. Yeah, exactly. So they start in Alaska, they actually count people there. Then that's just sort of a, let's get Alaska taken care of. Right. And then we can move on to other things.

Yeah. 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 going to, the other folks, receive a letter saying, census is coming, get excited, pretty much. Yeah, and they just have to sit around and wait for the census letter to come after that. Yeah, but what you do is with that census is coming letter,

it gives you the option of what language you want to get your census in, which is Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Russian, or a Spanish English edition. Spanglish. Yeah. And then in mid-March, the actual forms are mailed. There's 120 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 to live in the United States? Yeah, yeah. There's a, there's a. Places, maybe. Right. There's a thing called the residence rule.

Yeah. That the Census Bureau had to come to terms with, and apparently every census, they have like a public hearing on the residence 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 most, is considered your residence as far as the census goes.

Yeah. 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, OK, you go to the houses, go to the apartments and the condos, and like what else is there? Like a little dummy.

Plenty, overpasses. I mean there's dormitories, dormitories. Like where college students live? Yeah. Yeah, they get counted there. There are homes for senior living, assisted living homes. Yes. There are prisons.

Yeah. They get counted there. There are, you might live in a boat at a marina. Counted there. You might live on an aircraft carrier. Counted there. What else?

Shelters, trailer parks? Yeah, so 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 transient populations, like say migrant workers, undocumented immigrants, homeless people, where do they live? 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, whether they live in a car or whether they live in a mansion, they're trying to count every single person. And some of it's super easy. Again, they send 120 million census forms out to the residences.

That's the easy part. Right. The hard part is going and finding people who have these nontraditional residences. Hotels, people who live in weekly hotels, they've got to count them. And one of the confounding factors of the whole thing, Chuck, is let's say your son is away in college or prison.

You're probably going to be tempted to say, well, he's going to be back eventually. This is his home. This is his permanent address. The Census Bureau constantly has to fight with that and be like, no, no, no. Like, don't count them. They live in prison or they live in college.

And they'll be home in three to five years, which could be college or prison. Sure, right, exactly. A lot of people that fill out these forms don't speak English enough to fill out the form. And they may not even know to ask for the bilingual form. So they actually have online guides and 59 languages, telephone assistants in six languages,

and 33,000 in-person assistant centers across the US that are staffed. And 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 2010, especially a big push to the schools to get kids 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 sent them a little kit, a little fun kit, complete with coloring games. Color the briefcase. Kind of, right?

So back to the year, how the year shakes out, completed forms are due by April 1 of the year. And May through July, they are coming the streets looking for those people who didn't fill out the forms. And looking for the people, like you said, in all these nontraditional homes, I guess we'll call them. Or if they don't have homes, just nontraditional places where people dwell.

And then July through December, they are analyzing all that data. And by December 31, they are required by law to report the new apportionment numbers to the president for the congressional seats. And then they have to April the following year for all the data collection to be sussed out. Right.

So it's a long, it's a years long process. I guess, what is that? 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 72 years old up on the internet now. Right.

Or it used to be on microfilm. Now it's up on the internet. So the Census Bureau is always working, yeah. We forgot one group of people that really cracked me up. Carnies. Yeah. They mentioned carnies in here. Yep.

Got to count them. Yeah. Traveling. Got to catch up with them first. Yeah, I imagine carnies probably aren't census friendly. You never know. I'm sure it depends on the carnie. Can't pigeonhole them.

You're right. Even if you're a pigeon. It's a longstanding motto here. Don't pigeonhole the carnie. That's a t-shirt. So on the actual form, like you said, it's gotten a lot shorter these days. And we kind of joked a few times about the fact

that the first three questions are who's living there. But 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 1st that you did not include in question one? And finally, question number three says, just name everyone in the household.

So you really want to make sure they get that correct. You're also going to have to fill out things about 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 happy right now because apparently in the 2020 census, they will be asked, are you a member of an Alaskan native tribe?

If so, what tribe? And they're like, what business of this is yours? They're not very happy about this whole thing. And that was the newest thing I heard about the 2020 census that's going on right now. Well, you got to roll with the times. In 2000, they started allowing more than one race to be selected.

And that got me thinking about gender identity. And if the US was going to do anything like that. In like 60 years, probably. I haven't seen anything for this next one in 2020. But I did see that Australia and the United States, I'm sorry, Australia and the UK have both planned to include gender identity options in the next census. Wow.

So a little bit ahead of the curve from the US, no surprise. And Australia actually is, people are mad there this year because apparently, previous to this, they're doing their census right now, I think, in 2016. And prior to this one, you didn't have, 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 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. All this information, identifying information

is going to 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 more toward the model of including questions like that on the American Community Survey. Well, this is Australia, so. Oh, oh, gotcha. Yeah. Sorry.

I think the way I read it was that previous to this year, it was just kind of counting heads. Gotcha. Yeah, that's very invasive. Yeah, you could optionally fill that stuff in, but now they're saying you have to. You have to. So who knows?

And then we kind of teased earlier about people, about a crossbow. Yeah, there's a competing theories on what kind of job Census taker is, right? Yeah. Some people say it's a great job. It's very flexible. It pays in some places like $12 plus an hour.

You get to write off the mileage you put on your car. Sure. Great job. Out on the streets, fresh air? Sure. Other people say it's an extremely dangerous job. Yeah. And one that the Census Bureau tends to downplay,

despite the fact that there are like hundreds of incidents of Census takers being threatened or attacked just doing their job. Censeless Census violence. Yeah, and the crossbow guy in particular is a guy in Marion, Ohio, who had like a no trespassing sign posted on his property. Yeah, and a picture of a crossbow.

If you're a Census taker, that's meaning, legally, that doesn't have anything to do with you. Right. You are basically a deputized federal agent carrying out your business. Yeah. 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 said, hey, I would like you guys to leave. By the way, I have a machine gun here. And they started to leave. And he wanted, I guess, to make sure that they did leave. So he escorted them down his driveway, holding his crossbow. Not necessarily in any kind of threatening manner.

Just holding it. But just holding it. And apparently, no charges were pressed against the guy. I guess he did everything right. But 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.

Yeah. He's like, don't do that, even. Because I guarantee that guy lives alone. This article from 2010 in the Seattle Times, Census 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. Right.

But this is a collection of all the worst horror stories, which makes it an interesting article. Plus 2010 wasn't. It all depends on the year. Right. Some was in a great time. Like, people weren't loving the government in 2010. Some people directly cited that they

didn't want to help Obama out, so they weren't going to do the census. Oh, boy. People were attacked by dogs. One person was attacked with a baseball bat. Another census taker had a patio table thrown at her by an irate woman. There was just a lot of incidents like that.

And it was mostly anti-government, right? Yes. People yelling out, get out of my face with the government stuff. Right. And some people didn't make any threats. But yeah, they were really in sense that the government was asking anything about them like that.

And the census workers were like, this is crazy. People are really mad out there. They came back with news of the real temperament of a lot of Americans. And it was angry. Wow. Some of them quit. They're like, I'm not doing this anymore.

I'm risking my life for what? The census? Who cares? It's an interesting article. It gives you a different perspective of it than that. Yeah, we're going to allocate money to government services. Well, I'm sure by 2020, everyone in the United States will love the government.

Sure. Sure. Regardless of who wins the 2016 election. That's right. Yeah. You got anything else? Nothing. Sweet.

Well, if you want to know more about sense-sci, you can type census into the search bar at houseofworks.com. And since I said census, it's time for a listen or mail. All right, I'm going to call this, we helped with anxiety. Good. Hey, guys. I just want to write and see how much you have impacted my life.

My name is Jared. I'm a graphic designer in Birmingham, Alabama, and grew up in Kennesaw, Georgia. Wow. Grew up in the saw. Sure. His family had to own a gun by law. Yeah, remember that.

Is that still in the books there? I'm sure. I wonder if Jared was at our show in Birmingham. That ended up being, despite the smallest show we did, one of my most pleasurable shows. Well put. Pleasured? Able.

That was great. That little theater was awesome. It was. The work play theater. Yes. Cabaret style. They were great. Intimate and cool.

Felt like people were sitting on the stage with us. Virtually. They practically were. So anyway, he's in Birmingham. I 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 or at work,

which is where most of my panic attacks take place. I know. I feel for it. I don't know if any other anxiety sufferers also experience 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.

Your show has greatly impacted my life and its relationship to anxiety. I love you guys. Love the show. I always want to keep getting the word out about anxiety, 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. Good. And I'm glad that we can calm you down a little bit. But for sure, Jared. Yeah, I hate to hear about your troubles. And they're always going to be here for you every Tuesday and Thursday.

Don't worry. Nice Chuck. Yeah. 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.S.K. podcast or to me, Josh M. Clark.

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