U.S. Census Director Dr. Steven Dillingham joins Policy on Purpose to discuss the 2020 census, why it counts and how students can get involved.
Guests
Steven DillinghamU.S. Census Director
Hosts
Angela EvansDean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin
This is policy on purpose. A podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public
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Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. We take you behind the scenes of policy
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with the people who helped shape it. For more, visit LBJ. Don’t you, Texas?
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Hello, everyone, this is Angela Evans, dean of the LBJ School, and we’re in another podcast and policy
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on purpose. And today, I am extraordinarily honored to have director Steven Dillingham,
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who has taken on the enormous task scary, I think in some ways, of being
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the head of the U.S. Census Bureau in the time that we’re getting ready for the 2020 count. And the
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director came to the University of Texas in the LBJ School to really talk to us and the students
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about the importance of the census count and how it’s used and to solicit information
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and get ideas of how we can make this work the best. And as we said earlier, it’s one of the few
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places in the Constitution that has directs us to do something in terms of counting our population.
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Article one, which is the most important article, in my opinion. And
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so we’re here today. So, Director Dillingham, tell us a little bit about what you’re
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what your real wishes are in terms of getting the youth involved in this movement. Absolutely.
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Indeed. Thank you so much for having me here. It’s a great honor to be here at the LBJ School of Public Affairs
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at the University of Texas, to be here in Austin and to be in the great state of Texas. One
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of the messages is you said we’re communicating about the census
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and what it’s about and in helping to educate and motivate people, but particularly this week
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and in the upcoming weeks and in recent weeks, we’re trying to reach out to the higher education community
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and reaching out to the college students. There’s some 20 million students across the nation
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and we want them to know the census is coming. April 1st, 2020 is Census Day. But
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we have we have almost a half million census jobs. It’s the greatest mobilization
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since World War Two. It happens every 10 years in higher education
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and college students are uniquely positioned. For many, it would be their first jobs. They can go to 2020
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census dot gov apply online. And it’s a great opportunity,
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either a first employment opportunity or a part time employment opportunity. It pays well
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and we reimburse for mileage. So we’re making a special appeal to the college students to take part
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in this great civic event. One of the things we talked about earlier in a breakfast was the importance
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of census data for the research that is undertaken at the universities and how the students
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study this and the information they will use when they go out into the sector, whether they go into
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a public sector or whether they go into a business or nonprofit, they’re going to be using this type of data.
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So being in university is really important for us to support this type of thing.
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And absolutely, I think it’s the most used data in the country. When you think
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about public policy analysis and research of all types, public and private sectors,
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you usually think about how many people are being served or how many customers
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do you have. And in almost all data for public policy reasons are
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associated with people in the population data. So it’s just extremely important.
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Universities are great partners with us. We have special relationships with universities and we
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very much appreciate their support and their use of our data. I want you to share with
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the listeners some of the the new initiatives that you started in terms of gaining trust
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for people. So they’ll actually participate in the census. You have an amazing array of things
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that you’ve undertaken and are beginning to undertake. So explain a little bit that to people who
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are listening to this. Well, trust is so important. So we do communicate the very basic
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message that the census is so easy. We now have these two new for what you can do it on paper.
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You can do it on the Internet or by phone. It’s also so safe. And we can have long discussions
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about the laws that prevent anyone in the Census Bureau from sharing that information with anyone.
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We don’t share it with other federal agencies. We take in data, personal data, and we produce
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statistics and we only share statistics. And that’s governed by very stringent
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federal laws, also by culture and by practice within the Census Bureau. We have an
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excellent track record. But Congress passed those special protections in the 1950s
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and they’re enforced today. And and everyone should be aware of their data is safe. And the importance, as you pointed
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out, the data is used for everything from education to infrastructure
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to medical services, whatever you can think of, usually behind it somewhere.
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Is census data and population data. So those those are very important messages that we
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we send out to the to the public and others into the higher education community. And I think some people
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don’t understand as well as some of these communities use it for community development in terms of getting attracting
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businesses and targeting services like hospitals, having the data that shows the need.
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I think people need to understand that as well. You’re exactly right. And we have special training programs and
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dissemination programs with those days. We have people in every state that coordinate
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the census data with those states. And there are. Stammers And we work closely with them. We
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tried to. Done it. They identify needs for us and we work with them in making sure that they can apply our data
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to meet their public policy needs and their public service requirements. Director, when you think
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about what’s going on now at the scares of fake news or are people intruding
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into our systems and and and that the technology’s moving more toward online
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or cellular types as a collection of the data. What are some of the things that you’ve worried about and what
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are some of the things that you’re doing to try to prevent that being corrupted, the data being corrupted?
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Sure. It’s. It goes back to that trust factor. People really need to know that the data is safe.
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And that is accurate. So we have elaborate systems for dealing with
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protection of data. We have special contingency plans. And we work with some of the
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leading organizations, private sector and public, to make sure that the
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we counter misinformation and that the public really understands
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the importance of the census data and how what is true uses are. So so
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we’re we as I mentioned earlier this morning with you, we have the largest
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ever communications campaign, about a quarter of a million dollars in paid advertising,
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as well as the enormous amount of public service announcements that explain this to the
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public. And in hopefully they they receive that message that, again, is easy,
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it’s safe and it’s so important. And that kind of counteracts misinformation
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or or sometimes apprehensions that they may have. Talk to us a little bit about how are you using
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communities? You hit the big effort that you started in terms of using grassroots communities to help
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as well. Communities are vital communities and in my communities, certainly at the local level, but
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also cities and counties and state governments, they make the difference. I always explain
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the census cannot be conducted by the federal government alone, and it never has. If you go back and study
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the history in 1790, it really relies on the public willing to come forward
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and provide the information that’s needed. So it is our mission as a federal agency, but
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in many ways we’re sort of a coordinator and sometimes we’re the beneficiary of the great efforts
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going on at the community level. So we work with community groups. We have what we call generally
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would call community complete count committees, and we have about 7000 of those across the nation.
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We have a goal of having more than 300000 partners. We want every
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university to be our partner. We want every school district. We actually would like
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every school to be our partner. So our partners are stretched far and wide and very
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diverse groups, but they make all the difference in the world because people trust
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the people in their community. And so if we had the trusted voices in those communities
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explaining the census, it goes a long ways. I’m seeing 2020 is really a pivotal
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year in many ways. One is, you know, the difficulty that some people are talking about in terms of getting an actual headcount
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of people who are here. But the other thing is what you’re trying to do is move us away from this image of
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a person coming to your door with the questions here on a clipboard and starting to use technologies
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and new kinds of information technology. So this is going to be a very pivotal census here where you’re trying
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to move people that way. So the success of that is very important. Absolutely. We want the vast
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majority of people to self report their data whenever a household self reports its
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data. It saves the American taxpayers a hundred dollars plus per household.
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We don’t have to send someone out to knock on the door to collect information. So we base we will
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send five different mailings to every household that we haven’t heard back from them in the fourth
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mailing for most of the country. They will receive the questionnaire. And so they can decide,
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do I want to answer by mail? Do I want to do the written form?
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Do I wanted to use the Internet or do I want to make a phone call? And we have 10 customer service
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centers around the country that can handle the high volume calls and take the information
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over the phone. And you can complete your census in less than 10 minutes from most households.
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And you were talking to can if you’re doing it by cellular phone, you can do it anywhere. That’s right. Football
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stadium and a basketball court, whatever it is, is too. It’s too bad it’s not during football season.
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But you’re absolutely right. You can basically answer the census anywhere at any. And
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we’re so pleased to have these new options. And it helps us. They’re tools for reaching the hard to
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count populations. Yes. And one thing I want to talk about a little bit before we
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we have to end this is when you think about 2030, what are the things you’re looking at
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at the 2020 census that give you previews for 2030? Is it is
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it in the emerging information technologies? Is it the fact that we have very isolated
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populations? Is it what are a couple of things that you’re focusing on to really see what the 2020
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census projects? Sure. It’s all the above. In exchange, you know.
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In many areas and in this countries, change is just enormous. And in our
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society. So this census relying on the public has to be able to accommodate change.
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So this time we’re using these new technologies and we will have this experience under our belt.
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How well did it work? What are the lessons learned? We will need to document the practices and see
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if this would be use and and and maybe improved and enhanced in the future.
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But there may be other challenges, too. You know, there’s enormous administrative data
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that the federal government has and the state government has, et cetera. So sometimes that data is very important
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to getting to the accuracy of our count. And so we’re looking at options and
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was always looking at the bottom line that the tax dollars and there may be new ways and
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new approaches in the future that can save more money and perhaps enhance the accuracy.
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Well, your career as a public servant has really gone into data, and I know the importance of data
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and collecting data. And so we’re very fortunate to have you as a director. And
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I’m just I want to end on one thing. If you had to tell the people who are listening
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to this, if you had a message for them, what would that be? You can trust the census. Please
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support the census and help others participate in the census. Simple. Three little lessons
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and help everyone does it. This is an extremely important event that we do in our country and it’s important for our democracy.
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So I really appreciate what you’re coming here. I appreciate you taking time. And we wish you the best
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of luck as you take on this enormous challenge. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you.
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This is Policy on Purpose, a podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the
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University of Texas at Austin. We take you behind the scenes of policy with the people
12:02
who helped shape it. To learn more, visit LBJ, you Texas study. You
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can follow us on Twitter or Facebook at the LBJ School. Thank
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you for listening.
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