Census Counts On Everyone Government Mobilizing An ‘Army’ To Get The Most Accurate Number

How do you count Idaho?

Sure, it’s easy to track folks in apartments and houses, who check their mailboxes every day and promptly send back census forms.

But how do you find the families who live in the state’s remote mountains and hills, with no mailbox in sight? How about those living at the Aryan Nations compound or in areas where residents are known for their distrust of the government?

Such is the task of the army of Census 2000 workers getting ready to mobilize in Idaho in coming weeks.

“It’s definitely a challenge,” said Emery Orosz, field operations supervisor for the state’s 12 northern counties. “We may need snowmobiles, in some cases, helicopters. It could be an adventure.”

Getting an accurate count of every man, woman and child is useful for more than keeping number-crunchers employed. Census information is used to dole out some $200 billion annually, money that goes to roads and schools and communities, census workers say.

“You’re literally taking money out of your own pocket if you throw it in the garbage,” northern Idaho census recruiter Don Jackson said, referring to census questionnaires.

About 600 workers will be recruited from Adams and Valley counties to the Canadian border. A total of 1,800 census workers will be needed statewide. Most census-takers start at $9.25 an hour in Idaho.

The U.S. Census Bureau approaches its 10-year tally of the nation like a battle, with separate “operations” used for different segments of the population.

Homes and apartments with mailboxes are relatively easy, census workers say. Each one will receive a census questionnaire in coming weeks. Judging by past years, about 70 percent will be filled out and returned. If the forms aren’t mailed back by late April, census workers will start knocking on doors.

Things get tougher in rural areas, where census enumerators must go door-to-door, dropping off questionnaires and even conducting face-to-face interviews.

To make matters even more difficult, such operations are conducted in the state’s most sparsely populated regions, where finding enough qualified census takers can be as tough as conducting the census itself.

Nationwide, it costs $25 million to retrieve every one percent of census forms that don’t come back, said Michael Coe, census office manager in Lewiston.

Adams County, for example, in west-central Idaho, would require 470 qualified applicants to create a pool of workers large enough to hand-deliver census questionnaires to residents, Jackson said.

That’s one in seven Adams County residents who would need to be tested and qualified for a census job. Right now, Jackson has 87 qualified applicants from the county. He’ll likely borrow workers from other areas of the state.

Recruitment in Idaho’s five northernmost counties has been a bit more successful, Jackson said.

Kootenai County is at 83 percent of its required applicant pool, Bonner County has 110 percent of its necessary applicants, and Boundary County is at 95 percent capacity, he said.

But Shoshone County has just 54 percent of its needed applicants and Benewah County is at 39 percent, he said.

For the first time in census history, the residents of the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation will be counted door-to-door. In previous census years, questionnaires have simply been left at homes for residents to mail back.

In the 1990 census, as many as 12 percent of the state’s Native Americans went uncounted, Coe said.

“If there’s an undercount, then the community will not be getting their fair share of the dollars,” he said.

Said Jackson: “We’re really focusing on the Native Americans this year and making sure they stand up and get counted. We really need to work on building our trust back up with these folks.”

In Idaho, though, census takers must work to build trust with more than just Native Americans, Orosz said.

“People in Idaho are an awful independent breed,” he said. “Sometimes they’re not as cooperative as we would like them to be.”

When Orosz goes door-to-door in rural Idaho, he makes sure to trade his suit and tie for jeans and a flannel shirt.

“You don’t go in there acting like a big shot,” he said.

Lynn Peterson, who worked on the 1980 and 1990 censuses, learned that lesson. Two census takers she worked with in 1980 were met by gun-toting property owners in the Hidden Valley area, said Peterson, who’s now the executive director of St. Vincent de Paul in Coeur d’Alene. The residents eventually put away their weapons and no one was hurt, she said.

“It was quite an adventure.”

TO WORK Census 2000 is still looking for workers. Call (888) 325-7733 for more information.