Stand Up and Be Counted By now, every American should be aware
that the U.S. government is conducting its decennial census, as
mandated by the Constitution. Since this only happens every ten
years, every approach to counting the number of people living in
the U.S. is completely different, especially with the
exponential growth in technology in the last few decades. The
Census Bureau, housed in the Department of Commerce, is using a
mix of both old and new methods to get the word out and to track
responses. The effort began with an initial mailing to every
household in America saying that your census would be arriving
soon. Then, the actual form arrived, which each American was
supposed to fill out and send back. A third mailing was then
sent a few weeks later, to make sure they didn’t miss anyone.
Printing these extra forms will cost taxpayers about $42
million, but officials say the additional mailings will
ultimately save more than $500 million that would have been used
to hire temporary census takers. Acco