American Community Survey-where you one of the unlucky ones?.......

[yorkieusa]

I would trash it. Please define "legally obligated".

[BabyGirl Rosie]

I thought the first one we had to fill out was asking stuff that was none of their business. But wow! This one really is!!!!!!

[yorkieusa]

I'd risk the $100 fine and trash it.

[jp4m2]

I'm trying to find the non-compliance rate for this. So far this is what I found....

" The ACS collects the data using three modes of data
collection, mail, telephone and personal visit. The data is
collected for each monthly sample over a three month time
span. The mail mode uses a pre-notice letter, the ACS
questionnaire and a reminder post card. For those who do
not mail their form back in about three weeks, a
replacement questionnaire is mailed. For all mail returns,
a computer edit checks the completeness of the
questionnaire and if it is incomplete, a telephone follow up
is conducted to try to complete the missing information.
Currently we are getting about a 50% mail response........

"If the questionnaire is not received by the end of the first
month, all cases that have a telephone number (obtained
from a private vendor matching on the mailing address) are
sent to our telephone centers. About 40% of the cases that
do not mail their forms back have telephone numbers and
a telephone interviews are attempted for these cases. Mail
returns continue to arrive in the mail as the telephone
interviewing is occurring. Telephone interviewing occurs
for a little less than a month.".....

"Finally all cases that have not mailed a form back or
obtained an interview from the telephone call are eligible
for personal visit interviewing. Because of the large
expense of conducting a personal visit interview, only 1 in
3 cases are sent to personal visit interviewing. The personal
visit interviewing starts at the beginning of the third month
and continues to the end of the month."....

"Typically we have seen about a 50% mail response rate
and another 10% telephone interviews. Large cities
generally have a smaller mail response rate, down around
40% while some other areas have mail response rates over
60%. The remaining 40% is subsampled with about 13%
being eligible for personal visit interviewing."

"The cutoff dates to define the hard-to-interview for each
mode were: mail cases are the 17th of the month after mail
out (so for January mail out, all late mail cases were those
received after February 17th), telephone cases are the 25th
of the month of interviewing, and personal visit cases are
the 27th of the month of interviewing."

From what I have gathered trespassing laws do not apply to federal employees so shutting the drive gates does no good, they can enter anyway........I'll see what happens next.....

[chattiesmom]

Hummm I wonder if it's illegal to sprinkle nails and tacks on one's OWN private property driveway? Just a thought .

[LDMomma]

I guess I'll be the lone dissenter.

I'd fill it out. This is how statistical information is gathered in communities. What percent of kids are attending public school? If it's too low, they might start looking to find out why. How much are people making? Are wages in line with housing costs? When you're looking to move to new area, doesn't everyone want to be able to look this information up?

[PiePiper]

I received this survey and I too was uncomfortable with the questions. A few days later I get the letter saying it's the LAW, you have to fill it out and return it. I have this problem that I always follow rules and laws so I completed the form and returned it. I didn't like doing it and I wondered why they randomly picked me.

[jp4m2]

Originally Posted by LDMomma

I guess I'll be the lone dissenter.

I'd fill it out. This is how statistical information is gathered in communities. What percent of kids are attending public school? If it's too low, they might start looking to find out why. How much are people making? Are wages in line with housing costs? When you're looking to move to new area, doesn't everyone want to be able to look this information up?

I would have felt better if the survey was voluntary or if you didn't have to put down your real name, birth date and s.s.#...... I would have preferred it to be "Person A" and "Person B"......The questions asking what time I leave for work and if I'm fertile or if I can dress myself seems a bit much......Especially since the Census Dept. has lost over 1000 lap tops in the past six years and they have no clue where they are .......

[DvlshAngel985]

Originally Posted by boopster

Well... on the other hand, this survey is a genealogist's dream. It will be open to the public in 72 years if it follows the pattern of recent census releases. I've learned all kinds of things about my ancestors from old censuses. Only problem is some of my ancestors tended to lie to the census takers or at least not be too accurate.

It sounds like this survey is separate from the decennial census, though, and may be an ongoing thing throughout the years.

That's what I was thinking. 30-40-50 years from now someone can pull up those files and learn a lot about this countries past from the perspective of us "common folk." I was thinking when I saw that list how awesome that would have been to have when researching US in 1906 for my big research project at school. It would have been exactly what I needed to complete the project with accuracy!

[citygirl123]

Originally Posted by jp4m2

I would have felt better if the survey was voluntary or if you didn't have to put down your real name, birth date and s.s.#...... I would have preferred it to be "Person A" and "Person B"......The questions asking what time I leave for work and if I'm fertile or if I can dress myself seems a bit much......Especially since the Census Dept. has lost over 1000 lap tops in the past six years and they have no clue where they are .......

I agree...we are always warned about putting down our s.c.# on anything. The questions are too personal. I am a "rule-follower" also, but I might be tempted to stretch the truth, Ok lie, on a few of the questions. It could take some time to fill this out also, with looking up bills and statements...guessimates might work. They don't have time to check for accuracy I'll bet.

[JesStang]

Originally Posted by LDMomma

I guess I'll be the lone dissenter.

I'd fill it out. This is how statistical information is gathered in communities. What percent of kids are attending public school? If it's too low, they might start looking to find out why. How much are people making? Are wages in line with housing costs? When you're looking to move to new area, doesn't everyone want to be able to look this information up?

That's what I was thinking. I haven't received one so far but I would fill it out. They're the government so they know my ss# and birth date anyway. They're not asking what color bra I'm wearing so it's not that invasive lol.

[DvlshAngel985]

Originally Posted by JesStang

That's what I was thinking. I haven't received one so far but I would fill it out. They're the government so they know my ss# and birth date anyway. They're not asking what color bra I'm wearing so it's not that invasive lol.

I would do it if it was anonymous. I'd tell them what color underwear I'm wearing if they ask.

[Beamers Mom]

Originally Posted by PiePiper

I received this survey and I too was uncomfortable with the questions. A few days later I get the letter saying it's the LAW, you have to fill it out and return it. I have this problem that I always follow rules and laws so I completed the form and returned it. I didn't like doing it and I wondered why they randomly picked me.

Census in the Constitution - 2010 Census

Why were you selected?

[RachelandSadie]

Originally Posted by DvlshAngel985

I would do it if it was anonymous. I'd tell them what color underwear I'm wearing if they ask.

i'd rather tell them all about my underwear and sex life as long as i could leave off anything about where i live and who i am. i don't like people knowing the details of my life with my name and SS# attached to it. i'm even scared of becoming too well known in the music industry because i don't want people to know my real name and come find me. i use a stage name in that industry so why would i want to give anyone my real information at all? it's invasive and i know it may help the gov. decide housing, finances like min. wage, and other things, but it's still private and could be done in anonymous ways

[yorkieusa]

They don't need a real name, dob, soc to do statistics. This is over the top.