Dr. Robert B. Hill knows the consequences that result when the
national census undercounts a community’s population. A locality stands
to lose millions of dollars in federal funding for social services, job
training education, and other programs if the Census Bureau undercounts
the locality’s population, he explains.
“We were making progress on census accuracy, but in 1990, we had a
major undercount.” Hill said. “As a result, a number of mayors sued the
Census Bureau for miscounting their city populations.”
Hill, who is director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan
State University in Baltimore, Maryland, advises the Census Bureau on
gathering statistical information about African Americans. He is
particularly concerned about the accuracy of the upcoming census
because the Census Bureau undercounted African Americans and Hispanics
at five times the rate that it missed Whites in the 1990 count.
As a member of the Census Bureau’s African American advisory
committee, Hill supports the bureau’s plans to use scientific sampling
to improve the accuracy of the census in the year 2000. Sampling is a
statistical technique that draws conclusions about a population from a
pool within the target population. The sociologist is among a growing
number of statisticians, researchers, civil rights activists, public
officials, and minority academics who support the use of scientific
sampling in the upcoming census.
The proposal to use sampling, however, has run into opposition from
congressional Republicans, who have vowed to block its use in Census
2000.
Census Bureau officials say sampling would be introduced into the
census after traditional enumeration efforts have been made to reach
all households. Typically, questionnaires are mailed to all American
households. As in a traditional census, enumerators would be sent out
to count the households who failed to send questionnaires back to the
Bureau. Sampling would occur to estimate the population of the people
who are the hardest to reach.
A Presidential Endorsement
