Josh Croff has spent many days going door-to-door collecting information for the 2010 U.S. Census, and despite hearing tales of dangerous misadventures, his time on the road has been fairly peaceful. Although stories of ravenous dogs and other hazards have been circulated, Croff, an urban and regional planning senior and an enumerator for the U.S. Census, hasn’t encountered any hungry pets. But what he has found in his rounds to count the U.S. population is reticence.
“There’s definitely been some people who have been reluctant to fill it out, because they were skeptical of me or the government,” Croff said. “It’s interesting that people are really fearful of (an enumerator) or the government. It’s really strange — we’re just getting a count.”
Croff is one of many census enumerators who are hitting the streets of Lansing and East Lansing.
Perhaps one of the most important parts of the Census, the enumerators are spending hours going door to door to ensure the count is as accurate as possible.
Complete count
The Census isn’t about uncovering any illegal activity; it is purely to collect data that will distribute valuable federal funds, Census and city officials said.
Each person is worth about $1,500 a year, or $15,000 during 10 years, in federal funding, said East Lansing City Councilmember Nathan Triplett, who is also a member of the East Lansing Complete Count Committee, which works to ensure a complete count of city residents.
The enumerators are key factors in making sure every person in communities across the country is counted, he said.
“It adds up in a big way,” Triplett said. “Without (the enumerators’) work following up, we’d miss out on a tremendous amount of aid that goes to funding vital services in the community.”
When visiting households, Croff said it does not matter who lives there, they’re just looking for who was there on April 1, or Census Day.
“What we care about most is if they were there on April 1 and how many people were there regardless of if they actually live there,” he said. “We want to know just how many people were there; it’s like a snapshot of the house on that day.”
Going the distance
Crew supervisor Juanita Garcia, who is in charge of 15 enumerators, said her crew is diverse and has a close-knit feel. Her group has a retired detective, a retired lawyer, a stay-at-home mom, a military veteran, a Lansing Community College professor and several students, she said.
“I have a great crew, all walks of life, all diversity, all education levels, and that’s how it should be,” Garcia said. “That’s what America is and we’re a portrait of America. … We reflect everyday people. We want everyday you and me on the streets collecting the information.”
Enumerators will go to great lengths to get the information, but will never invite themselves into a house, Garcia said.
“We don’t go in unless they invite us in. If it’s raining we stand outside under our umbrella,” she said. “We had a guy invite us in and watch him play video games while he answered questions. (The enumerator figured he) might not get the chance again, so he conducted the interview while watching video games. We got the count.”
The job
The Census provides more than 635,000 enumerator jobs across the country, representing a great spike in the economy, Triplett said.
Most of the Census jobs are part-time and provide valuable extra cash or experience to those looking to transfer to a full time job, Lansing Census office manager Fred Sanborn said.
“We have a mix who have successfully transferred to full time jobs from the Census. They took the time to look ahead, and say that a Census job would be a good platform to go from,” he said. “We’ve lost quite a few employees, it shows a hopeful time, maybe that the economy deep down in the bowels is turning around.”
Support student media!
Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
For college students such as Croff, who also works as a research assistant at MSU’s Land Policy Institute and has an unpaid internship in the East Lansing Planning Department, the job offers a good flow of cash at $14 per hour in the Lansing area.
“My roommate told me the Census was hiring and that it was pretty decent money,” Croff said. “I try to work more, but it’s around 16 to 25 hours a week.”
Garcia said her group works anywhere from 20 to 40 hours a week.
Although it wasn’t at the front of his mind, Croff believes the Census will look good for his future career endeavors.
“A lot of this population data will be looked at in my career of urban planing to determine how to make decisions,” he said. “I had just been talking about it in my methodology class and we used a lot of the data to do some statistical things.”
The jobs provided by the Census are often underrated but the information is invaluable to the country and East Lansing, Triplett said.
“I think it’s one of those things people don’t think of, that every 10 years it creates a tremendous amount of jobs,” he said. “The job that the enumerators do is absolutely critical. It provides them with an employment opportunity and provides a vital duty to communities to make sure we get our fair share of federal dollars to East Lansing.”
Discussion
Share and discuss “Making it count” on social media.
