Opinion: The Trump administration’s statistical malpractice on the census
By Ronald L. Wasserstein March 13 at 4:21 PM Ronald L. Wasserstein is executive director of the American Statistical Association.
The nation’s population is about to undergo its decennial checkup. This massive examination is one of our country’s most carefully structured operations. Why? Because the United States depends on the data the census generates to allocate billions of dollars of taxpayer money fairly and distribute the 435 legislative seats in the House of Representatives. For that reason, every aspect of the census is carefully checked and rechecked in advance so that the resulting data are accurate and reliable.
Given sufficient time, a question such as this can be properly tested in accordance with scientific standards to be sure that it is not confusing, easily misinterpreted, taken out of context or otherwise creates problems for census respondents. What’s more, the Paperwork Reduction Act and the standards derived from it demand that such questions be well-tested in advance.
Nonresponse further leads to undercount. Undercount means what it says — not counting every human being in the country, which is what the Constitution requires the census to do. Individuals may fear responding to the census because someone in their household or in their orbit is not a citizen, whether or not they are legally in the United States.
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