$45.10 / person: Welcome to the 2010 Census

Posted by Dan Miller on April 3rd, 2008 filed in Geopolitics, Maps, Tools

13.7 Billion dollars. A big number, and also the *conservative* estimate the Census has given for the amount the 2010 census will cost. With an estimated 303 million people living in America (taken, of course, from the Census.gov website) that works out to $45.10 / person.

Really?

I certainly would not dare to understate the importance of the census bureau: the data collection it does is excellent for my own research. Even more astounding is the incredible accessibility they provide on the variety of websites they have developed for end users. But when it takes nearly 9 hours of minimum wage salary to count and catalog a single individual, something is going horrible wrong. We could even be extremely optimistic and say the average census bureau employee is much better paid than myself, making $45 / hour - at this rate, it would still work out to taking at least an hour to count one person. Just one person.

So, here is my call: Geography (and GIS) needs to step it up. Find out whats going on - clearly money is available to be made (at $45 / person, you can get rich quick!). Such incredible resources could be turned to doing very useful things, like creating premade shape files for download, data analysis, or lobbying for more data collection methods to be created.  Through this everyone will benefit - and we can even keep the troops in Iraq for three more days… but thats another topic.