Benefits, Burdens, and Prospects of the American Community Survey Summary of a Workshop (2013) / Chapter Skim
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8 The Burdens of the ACS, and Closing Discussion
8 The Burdens of the ACS, and Closing Discussion
Pages 145-166
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From page 145... ...
. In addition to burden-related material in these and other individual presentations, the workshop steering committee devoted a separate session to issues of burden, assembling a small group to speak about a selection of important aspects or components of burden: • The workshop was intended to focus on nonfederal users of ACS data, and so no speakers or applications from the federal executive agencies were in cluded in the workshop program.
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From page 146... ...
This chapter is also an appropriate point to summarize the brief period of closing discussion for the workshop. The workshop steering committee invited Steve Murdock (Rice University)
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From page 147... ...
Though it most often relies on already available data, GAO will occasionally conduct its own data collections as studies warrant, including surveys of local governments and school systems, but it is not equipped for doing big population surveys. Fecso said that GAO makes a point of conducting a data reliability assessment on data sources available to it, be they public- or private-sector-generated sources, and that this assessment includes such factors as the competence of the source, the reasonableness of the resulting estimates, and the soundness of the methodology.
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From page 148... ...
In 2002, GAO's The American Community Survey: Accuracy and Timeliness Issues
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From page 149... ...
8–B TRADEOFFS: USING A FEDERAL SURVEY TO DRIVE STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT DECISIONS Warren Brown (Cornell University) began his remarks by commenting that a frequently raised argument in favor of the ACS -- not one dwelt upon at all in this workshop, but invoked in other settings -- is that it is essential to the federal government and specifically to the distribution of more than $450 billion of federal funds.
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From page 150... ...
Brown continued that he wanted to use his time to talk about the uses of ACS data by state and local governments in addressing the needs of their residents -- and, in that light, the burdens that the ACS in its present form creates for state and local users. He said that the basic point he wanted to express is that the ACS creates tradeoffs for users -- fix or relieve one burden, create or exacerbate another -- and he said that he would briefly illustrate his point through an example of work done with the Georgia Division of Aging Services, during his 3-year period at the University of Georgia as state demographer.
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From page 151... ...
When the Division of Aging Services came to him with a problem, Brown emphasized that they did so with tabulations in hand: "They used data from the American Community Survey; I didn't bring this data to them," or have to bring it to them. The heart of the problem is that one specific question on the ACS makes it, seemingly, ideal for the division's purposes.
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From page 152... ...
The confidence limits widen a great deal and, from this picture, Brown said that "it is difficult to justify how many persons in need" of the veteran-specific services are in the Macon area. Yet "this is the only information they have, to set those kinds of planning objectives." Brown closed by arguing that what is needed for effective programming in state and local government programs is "reliable, consistent, accurate, precise estimates, as best we can get them." Brown said that the example of the disabled veterans brings home to him that the ACS creates, and will continue to create, tradeoffs.
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From page 153... ...
THE BURDENS OF THE ACS, AND CLOSING DISCUSSION 153 Atlanta, Georgia a
Macon, Georgia a
Figure 8-2 Veterans by service-connected disability rating, Atlanta and Macon, Georgia, metropolitan areas, 2008–2010 SOURCE: American Community Survey, 2008–2010, Table B21100; adapted from workshop presentation by Warren Brown.
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From page 154... ...
Moreover, many of the ACS questions are inherently highly personal in nature -- Steinhardt said that there is "no other way to get the value out of the ACS without asking those questions," using the personal answers to produce estimates at aggregate levels. So, getting to the way in which a privacy rights advocate reads the ACS, Steinhardt said that the first natural question is how well the Census Bureau protects the data.
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From page 155... ...
, the Census Bureau estimated that the standard ACS housing unit questionnaire takes about 40 minutes to complete on the mailed paper form and about 27 minutes administered 3 Housing Question 10 on the 2012 ACS questionnaires asks "Which FUEL is used MOST for heating this house, apartment, or mobile home? " The first two response categories, out of nine, are "Gas: from underground pipes serving the neighborhood" and "Gas: bottled, tank, or LP."
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From page 156... ...
Based on these assumptions, and including quality control interview and data collection from group quarters as well as households, the Census Bureau said that it anticipates the average annual respondent burden for 2012–2015 to be roughly 2,435,568 hours across 3,805,200 respondents -- a large commitment of time and resources that invites continued and active discussion to keep that burden in check. Asked to comment specifically on issues of respondent burden, Kenneth Darga (Michigan state demographer)
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From page 157... ...
Continuing, Darga suggested an important contrast with other demands for personal information: "when the [Internal Revenue Service] or an insurance company or a police officer wants information about you it is generally because they want to make some sort of decision about you." But the Census Bureau is fundamentally different in that what it really wants is aggregate information, not personal information -- the catch being that it is not possible to arrive at those aggregate data without asking respondents inherently personal questions and then adding the responses together.
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From page 158... ...
• Make better provisions for complex households: For living situations like co op student housing or group homes, the ACS data collection task is one of collecting all the information of households of many unrelated residents -- and, Darga said, it is tough to envision or rely on a "house secretary who is going to take responsibility for answering the ACS" on behalf of 20 unre lated residents. In these kinds of households, the Census Bureau's effective "all-or-nothing" approach to collection -- assuming that the response will be automatically coordinated for everyone in the household -- may not be effective.
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From page 159... ...
It may be feasible to achieve both of those objectives by allowing respondents to use or claim a nickname or an alias; Darga added that deemphasizing the need for reporting names could help the Census Bureau make clear its interest in aggregate informa tion rather than "building a master database of personal information on individuals." • Consider the use of an incentive to help reverse attitudes toward partici pating in the ACS: Acknowledging that "it is probably not feasible to include a cash incentive payment in the Census Bureau's budget" for the ACS, Darga suggested "many politicians -- and taxpayers -- do like tax cuts." Darga suggested that some small tax credit for people who have submitted a complete ACS form could be a reasonable way to offset a sample household's time and effort in completing the survey. Indeed, he remarked, "we might even start to see people complaining that they haven't received an ACS form instead of complaining that they have." 8–E RESPONDENT COMPLAINTS AND CONGRESSIONAL REACTION Acknowledging that he had been asked by the workshop planners to serve as a sort of "designated complainer," Stephen Tordella (Decision Demographics, Inc.)
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From page 160... ...
Still, he suggested that the correspondence suggests some of the flavor and the magnitude of complaints about the survey -- even if 1 in 1,000 people complain, 1 out of 1,000 of the roughly 3 million households reached by the ACS each year, "that is still 3,000 complaints," from which insight can be gleaned. From his interactions with Census Bureau staff, Tordella said that he received information about some broad categories of reactions to the ACS.
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From page 161... ...
He closed the recitation of common complaints by reading a longer quote from one letter: I find this American Community Survey to be appalling, invasive, and in trusive, and none of the government's business and I intend to let my sena tors and congressmen know how I feel. Take note of that.
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From page 162... ...
From his conversations with congressional staff members, Tordella said that he concluded that there is a feeling out there that the Census Bureau is doing little to alleviate the perception problems with the ACS. "Press these congressional staffers about the idea of a voluntary ACS and the cost and quality implications, and their response is, ‘You fix it.' " Use cost savings from Internet data collection, or work out some new methodology, but "just go and fix it." With that in mind, Tordella suggested that one possible solution -- or at least "a place to start" -- would be for the Census Bureau to recognize that "respondents really should be king." Newspapers have ombudsmen to take readers' perspectives in mind and challenge editorial approaches -- Tordella asked "why shouldn't the respondent have an ombudsman" appointed at the Census Bureau?
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From page 163... ...
argued that even the idea of a tax credit, rather than a cash incentive, is infeasible because the Census Bureau would have to violate its own confidentiality provisions in order to tell the IRS who had completed the survey; Darga countered that some kind of stub or "receipt" from the ACS response could be attached with a tax return if the respondent wanted to claim the credit, but Weinberg argued that simply confirming a person or household's inclusion in the ACS could constitute a Title 13 violation. Alan Zaskavsky (Harvard University)
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From page 164... ...
Terri Ann Lowenthal (Funders Census Initiative and the Census Project) and Steinhardt engaged in a colloquy over Steinhardt's assertion that the mandatory nature of the ACS is a close constitutional question.
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From page 165... ...
Murdock explained that he brought up this story because perceptions matter a great deal; consistent with Tordella's earlier remarks, Murdock said that it does not take a majority to create major problems for the ACS -- single, vocal complaints from key stakeholders can do just as much damage. Acknowledging that it might sound to some "like I'm a traitor to the cause" -- "I am not" -- Murdock said that his second main point is that it is prudent for the survey's stakeholders to give serious thought "about what happens if our defense of the ACS Alamo doesn't work." The history of the battle at the Alamo suggests that many of the casualties at the fort "died so bravely because there was no way out." Murdock emphasized that he "has absolutely no doubt in the utility of the ACS data"; having led the Bureau, he also has "nothing but complete and total admiration for the Census Bureau staff that does this work." Nonetheless, he suggested that stakeholders need to "start talking quietly, constructively," about viable alternatives and about managing the tradeoffs that might come through alternative sampling sizes or aggregations of periods over time.
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From page 166... ...
Jim Treat (chief, American Community Survey Office, U.S. Census Bureau)
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