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You or your parents have probably already received a letter in the mail from the United States Census Bureau alerting you to the upcoming 2010 Census survey.
The Census in itself is a wonderful tool the government uses to count every U.S. resident, both citizens and non-citizens. According to the Census Bureau, it helps the government allocate specific funds for things like hospitals, schools, emergency services and senior centers.
It is useful information for the government as well as researchers, economists and sociologists, and the purpose exceeds the tedious effort to gather the information.
The way the information is collected, however, is outdated.
In a fast-paced, technologically savvy world, many other options are available and make much more sense.
In a time when "going green" seems to be more popular than Prada, mailing letters to more than 300 million people comes at a cost to many poor trees. More importantly, saving taxpayer money should be at the top of our priorities, with our economy in such a fragile state.
The expense of printing and mailing forms to everyone in the country could be reduced by using the Internet.
The counter-argument here would be that not every person living in the U.S. has access to the Internet.
However, the Census Bureau knows who does and who does not return their forms and proceeds to send a census taker to the homes of all those individuals as the final step in gathering the information (after sending out another "replacement" form).
So, if they can do this, why can’t they develop a secure site for individuals to login and answer the survey questions?
Even as a preliminary step to the mailings, the electronic survey would cut down on cost and trees.
Another way to reduce costs would be to eliminate the first letter altogether.
Why do we need a letter telling us that we are going to get another letter in a few weeks?
The government has already spent so much on advertising – we get the point. We see the commercials and the billboards about the census. We know it is coming – so why waste our own money telling us as much?
Today, many people can access the Internet virually anywhere.
An electronic survey option is a much cheaper and efficient way to gather the necessary information.
Though it can’t solve the problem of accuracy or reach every resident living in the U.S., if used as a preface to the mail forms, it could taxpayers approximately $56 million.
The benefits of having an online version of the survey outweigh the negatives.
Other than the costs and the obvious reduction in time it would take to get the survey back, an online survey would minimize the possibility of receiving a fake survey with the intentions of stealing your personal information.
I don’t refute the idea of the importance of gathering the information and why we need it. It is valuable to all of us.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the government needs to distribute more than $400 billion, and it is from this survey that they determine where and who needs it the most.
I am more concerned with the fact our Census Bureau needs to update the process.
Its outdated mailing system is costing all of us money and time, not to mention the amount of trees it takes to make more than 600 million pieces of paper.
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