CENSUS, U.S. BUREAU OF THE

CENSUS, U.S. BUREAU OF THE. The U.S. Bureau of the Census, established in 1902, collects, compiles, and publishes demographic, social, and economic data for the U.S. government. These data affect business decisions and economic investments, political strategies and the allocation of political representation at the national, state and local levels, as well as the content of public policies and the annual distribution of more than $180 billion in federal spending. Unlike the information gathered and processed by corporations and other private sector organizations, the Census Bureau is commissioned to make its summary data publicly available and is legally required to ensure the confidentiality of the information provided by individuals and organizations for seventy-two years.

The Census Bureau employs approximately 6,000 full-time employees and hired 850,000 temporary employees to assist with the completion of the 2000 census. The president of the United States appoints the director

of the Census Bureau, a federal position that requires confirmation by the U.S. Senate. The bureau's headquarters are located in Suitland, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. The bureau's twelve permanent regional offices are located across the United States, and its processing and support facilities are in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

The Census Bureau has several data gathering responsibilities: the original constitutional purpose from which it draws its names is the completion of the decennial census. Article I of the Constitution requires Congress to enact "a Law" providing for the completion of an "actual Enumeration" of the population of the United States every "ten years." The 1787 Constitutional Convention adopted this provision to facilitate a proportional division of state representation in the House of Representatives. The basis and method for apportioning representation were unresolved problems that divided the states throughout the early national years. Numerous solutions were proposed and debated. At the First Continental Congress in 1774, Massachusetts delegate John Adams recommended that "a proportional scale" among the colonies "ought to be ascertained by authentic Evidence, from Records." Congress subsequently requested that colonial delegates provide accurate accounts "of the number of people of all ages and sexes, including slaves." The population information provided to Congress during the Revolutionary War was gathered and estimated by the states from available sources, including state censuses, tax lists, and militia rolls. Before the 1787 convention, Congress never used this information to apportion congressional representation, rather it served as the basis for apportioning monetary, military, and material requisitions among the states.

After ratification of the Constitution, Congress and President George Washington enacted federal legislation authorizing the first national census in 1790. Sixteen U.S. marshals and 650 assistants were assigned the temporary task of gathering personal and household information from the 3.9 million inhabitants counted in this Census. The secretary of state supervised the next four decennial censuses, and the Department of the Interior supervised it from 1850 through 1900. Beginning with the 1810 census, the information collected and published extended beyond population data to include tabular and graphic information on the manufacturing, mining, and agriculture sectors of the U.S. economy; on housing conditions, schools, and the achievement of students; and on water and rail transportation systems.

To expedite the collection and publication of the 1880 census, a special office was created in the Department of the Interior. With a number of endorsements, including ones from the American Economic Association and the American Statistical Association, Congress eventually enacted legislation in 1902 establishing the Census Office as a permanent executive agency. The legislation also expanded the mission of the new agency, authorizing an interdecennial census and surveys of manufacturers as well as annual compilations of vital statistics, and the collection and publication of data on poverty, crime, urban conditions, religious institutions, water transportation, and state and local public finance. In 1913 the Census Bureau was reassigned to and remains within the Department of Commerce.

With continued growth of the U.S. population and economy, the Census Bureau acquired new data collection and publication responsibilities in the twentieth century. In 1940, it initiated more detailed censuses of housing than previously available; in 1973, the Department of Housing and Urban Development contracted the bureau to complete the annual American Housing Survey. In 1941, the Bureau began collecting and tabulating official import, export, and shipping statistics; and since 1946 it has issued annual reports profiling the type, size, and payrolls of economic enterprises in every U.S. county. Among its other post–World War II statistical programs, the bureau has trained personnel and provided technical support for statistical organizations and censuses in other nations. Since 1957, the bureau also has completed censuses of state and local governments, a voluntary program of data sharing supplemented by annual surveys of public employee retirement programs and quarterly summaries of state and local government revenues. In 1963, the Census Bureau began a regular schedule of national transportation surveys. In 1969 and 1972 respectively, it started publishing regular reports on minority-owned and women-owned businesses, providing a statistical foundation for several federal affirmative action policies. Since the 1980s, it also provides quarterly and weekly surveys on the income and expenditures of American consumers for the Department of Labor.

Beyond the wealth of statistical information, the U.S. Census Bureau and its predecessors have additionally been supportive of several innovative and subsequently important technologies. A "tabulating machine" was employed in the 1880 census, completing calculations at twice the conventional speed. Herman Hollerith's electric punch card tabulating system, the computer's predecessor, replaced the tabulating machine in the 1890 census and ended the practice of hand tabulation of census returns. Subsequent censuses used improved versions of the punch card technology until the 1950 census, when the bureau received the first UNIVAC computer, the first commercially available computer, which completed tabulation at twice the speed of mechanical tabulation. Sub-sequent censuses have continued to employ the latest advances in computer technology, adopting optical sensing devices that read and transmit data from penciled dots on a mailed-in Census form and, in the 2000 Census, optical character recognition technology that reads an individual's hand-written responses.

CENSUS, U.S. BUREAU OF THE

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