4 ms·

650 million dollars to tally some simple demographic information? I understand there is always more to the story - but this doesn't pass the smell test. Addit

by eric_b 9y ago

650 million dollars to tally some simple demographic information? I understand there is always more to the story - but this doesn't pass the smell test. Additionally, what does the Census Bureau need 1.5 billion for on a non-census year? I don't mean that rhetorically - 1.5 billion a year pays 15,000 people an annual salary of 100k. Where is that money going?

nscalf 9y ago
AWS bills
skybrian 9y ago
"Most recently, Census 2010 employed 635,000." https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/how_many_census_takers_are_needed_to_conduct_the_census.html https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/...
- magila 9y ago
  That's during the census itself, which is still three years away. The funding in question is just to develop the infrastructure to record the data.
ethbro 9y ago
Per the article, spending typically jumps in the years leading up to a decennial count. And it is pretty important, as I'm assuming it gets fed in as base data to a lot of models (and our representative democracy).
ACow_Adonis 9y ago
Ever done a census? Several hundred million dollars would equate to a few dollars a head in the US, which my gut feel says is not bad value (and may even be an unrealistic underestimate) That doesn't mean there aren't cheaper ways to generate specific figures/estimates than a census, but an important point is that those aren't censuses. Tabulation of the data is not the most expensive part, although even that is far more complicated than most realise. The data is literally not there to tally: you have to collect it. Now keep in mind you have to target and include, in no particular order: People with no homes People with no internet People with no smartphones Old people Young people People with lots of money People with no money Newborns The dead Non-English speakers The illiterate Etc. You need interviewers, transport, pre-testing and callibration, actual implementation, post-testing and calibration. This is all without even considering finding the people with the right skills to design, implement and coordinate this, and without accounting for any software or capital costs. Additionally, censuses ramp up and ramp down, you can't just put aside funding for the census year: systems of that size cannot be hired and deployed in that amount of time. It's a bigger operation with more bodies than many military exercises, and I'm guessing actually they do it N times cheaper. I'm assuming that the US census is much like ours: in the pre/post years you're planning the next roll out, analyzing the things that went wrong last year, experimenting with improvements, all with a possible backup-back out case in case those experiments go wrong and a hard deadline that cannot be missed.
actuallyalys 9y ago
I don't know, it starts to seem more reasonable if you consider that they're collecting simple demographic information from everyone, including people without computers or permanent addresses. My guesses, from most to least plausible: —Personnel. As skybrian mentioned, the last census employed half a million people [0], so I assume this system has to keep track of all of them and what places they're assigned to canvas. —Hardware. The 2010 census used 500,000 handheld computers [1]. This cost probably doesn't include any handhelds, but it does mean that it has to receive data from devices. —Mapping and GIS. The census releases data for tons of geographic levels, so this system needs to either interface with whatever existing system they have or implement all of that. —Data formats. This information is collected in multiple formats (phone, paper, in-person survey), possibly including scanned images. —Related information. The census has to count everyone, so they also have to track a huge number of addresses. —Other surveys. The Census Bureau does more than just the census itself, so that cost might include other surveys. Even if it's more expensive than it should be, it's still a pretty good deal. Wikipedia says the census determines how $400 billion a year in government spending is allocated. It's not sourced, but that seems plausible. The 2010 census cost $15 billion dollars [2] in total, so that's less than 1 percent. [0]: https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/how_many_census_takers_are_needed_to_conduct_the_census.html https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Census_Bureau#Handheld_computers_.28HHC.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Census_Bureau#Ha... [2]: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/01/13/Complying-with-Old-Rules-Raises-Costs http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/01/13/Complying-... Edit: fix formatting

by eric_b 9y ago

nscalf 9y ago

AWS bills

skybrian 9y ago

"Most recently, Census 2010 employed 635,000." https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/how_many_census_takers_are_needed_to_conduct_the_census.html https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/...

magila 9y ago
That's during the census itself, which is still three years away. The funding in question is just to develop the infrastructure to record the data.

ethbro 9y ago

Per the article, spending typically jumps in the years leading up to a decennial count. And it is pretty important, as I'm assuming it gets fed in as base data to a lot of models (and our representative democracy).

ACow_Adonis 9y ago

Ever done a census? Several hundred million dollars would equate to a few dollars a head in the US, which my gut feel says is not bad value (and may even be an unrealistic underestimate) That doesn't mean there aren't cheaper ways to generate specific figures/estimates than a census, but an important point is that those aren't censuses. Tabulation of the data is not the most expensive part, although even that is far more complicated than most realise. The data is literally not there to tally: you have to collect it. Now keep in mind you have to target and include, in no particular order: People with no homes People with no internet People with no smartphones Old people Young people People with lots of money People with no money Newborns The dead Non-English speakers The illiterate Etc. You need interviewers, transport, pre-testing and callibration, actual implementation, post-testing and calibration. This is all without even considering finding the people with the right skills to design, implement and coordinate this, and without accounting for any software or capital costs. Additionally, censuses ramp up and ramp down, you can't just put aside funding for the census year: systems of that size cannot be hired and deployed in that amount of time. It's a bigger operation with more bodies than many military exercises, and I'm guessing actually they do it N times cheaper. I'm assuming that the US census is much like ours: in the pre/post years you're planning the next roll out, analyzing the things that went wrong last year, experimenting with improvements, all with a possible backup-back out case in case those experiments go wrong and a hard deadline that cannot be missed.

actuallyalys 9y ago

I don't know, it starts to seem more reasonable if you consider that they're collecting simple demographic information from everyone, including people without computers or permanent addresses. My guesses, from most to least plausible: —Personnel. As skybrian mentioned, the last census employed half a million people [0], so I assume this system has to keep track of all of them and what places they're assigned to canvas. —Hardware. The 2010 census used 500,000 handheld computers [1]. This cost probably doesn't include any handhelds, but it does mean that it has to receive data from devices. —Mapping and GIS. The census releases data for tons of geographic levels, so this system needs to either interface with whatever existing system they have or implement all of that. —Data formats. This information is collected in multiple formats (phone, paper, in-person survey), possibly including scanned images. —Related information. The census has to count everyone, so they also have to track a huge number of addresses. —Other surveys. The Census Bureau does more than just the census itself, so that cost might include other surveys. Even if it's more expensive than it should be, it's still a pretty good deal. Wikipedia says the census determines how $400 billion a year in government spending is allocated. It's not sourced, but that seems plausible. The 2010 census cost $15 billion dollars [2] in total, so that's less than 1 percent. [0]: https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/how_many_census_takers_are_needed_to_conduct_the_census.html https://www.census.gov/history/www/faqs/agency_history_faqs/... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Census_Bureau#Handheld_computers_.28HHC.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Census_Bureau#Ha... [2]: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/01/13/Complying-with-Old-Rules-Raises-Costs http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/01/13/Complying-... Edit: fix formatting