WEBVTT - How the Census Works 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.600 Make your business official with Google and square Space. When 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:05.120 you create a custom domain and a beautiful business website 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:07.960 with square Space, you receive a free year of business 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.000 email and professional tools from Google. It's the simplest way 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.720 to look professional online. The squares space dot com slash Google. 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:17.680 To start your free trial, use the offer code work 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.000 for an additional ten percent off your first purchase. Google 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:25.720 and square Space. Make it professional, Make it beautiful. Welcome 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:35.320 to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.120 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.320 Chuck Bryant, and Jerry uh. And this is Stuff you 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.199 should Know the podcast. There are one, two, three of us. No, 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:49.920 you just take a census. H You like that? Uh? Yeah, 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.080 I thought this is much more interesting than I thought 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:57.360 it would be. It wouldn't take much. I would guess 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.120 most people's expectations of the census is that it's awfully boring. 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.080 It's not at all. I don't know about the at 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.240 all part, but yes, there are plenty of interesting factors 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.880 to it that keep it from being awfully boring. Yeah, 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:12.479 I mean, I'm not saying it's Uh, it doesn't get 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.880 you jazzed. It's not exciting, but it's interesting to me, 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:20.920 and I'm sure it's exciting to some people people in demography. Yeah, 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:26.360 statistical walks, stat walks, right as we call them stocks. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:33.440 Oh man, just keep going. Uh yeah, there are plenty 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.039 of people who find the sensus amazingly interesting. And that's 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.680 who this is for. That's right. We've got twenty twenty 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.200 coming up, by the way, which just the name of 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:46.000 it makes it an exciting census. Yeah. So, um, and 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:48.840 I should say we're talking about the American census. There's 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:53.280 sensuces everywhere. Um. Yeah, It's not like every country does 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.920 the census all, you know, on a set schedule, but 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.840 it's pretty common actually, especially in westernized developed countries, that 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.280 a census every ten years, where you literally go out 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:07.960 and one form or another count every single person living 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.160 in your country. Yeah. I got a couple of facts 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:12.720 about other countries, but this is largely about the U. 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.200 S census, you know, and in the US we do 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:20.400 our census every ten years on years ending in zero. 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:23.160 That's right. I was like, I wonder if everybody does 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.680 it like that, And again it's kind of hit or 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:27.359 miss with other countries. But I saw in the UK. 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.519 They do it every ten years and years ending in one. Really, 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.959 I was like, that's so foreign. Maybe they want to 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:40.000 see what mistakes we make. Actually, probably not, because, as 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:44.560 we'll see, the census starts cranking up a full year 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:49.200 before they even start taking names. Yeah. And actually something 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.600 else that surprised me about the UK US census comparison. 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.519 We started long before they did. Our modern census started 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:00.680 before the UK's modern census by several decades. I wonder 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:02.919 if they were just like, you know, oh, it's a 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.880 bloody good idea. Well, I wonder if they just weren't concerned. 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.040 They just looked around and said, there's there's lots of 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:11.840 us and that was good enough enough to rule the world, 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:15.560 all right, So every ten years, like you said, it's 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.840 the Commerce Department, Uh, the Census Bureau here in the US. 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:21.160 Here in the US. Oh boy, we're gonna say that 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.799 every time. Um, it is in the U s Constitution 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.400 goes all the way back to seventeen nine, back when 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:31.160 they were less than four million people, um, four million. 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.880 You know, back then they didn't count uh slaves, they 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:39.640 didn't count Native Americans. Uh. I think they did count 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.080 slaves in the first one no, no, no no, I'm saying 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:46.160 the four million people. Oh I was not counting those people. 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.680 Are you sure? That's what it says, but they I'm 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.960 not saying they didn't count them in the census. Um. 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.040 It's sadly what that probably means is that they were 0:03:56.080 --> 0:04:00.120 not considered people. So there's a whole federalist paper about this. 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:05.440 There's something very famously called the three fifths Compromise. Remember that, 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:08.360 where um, the Southern states were like, hey, you gotta 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.520 count the slaves, and the Northern states were like, you 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.640 guys treat slaves like property, So no, we're not going 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.000 to count them in the census. And there was this 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.640 deal struck called the three fifths Compromise where um, slaves 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:26.760 would be counted as three fifths of a person, right, um. 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.240 And the whole reason was that the Southern states didn't 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.479 want to be overwhelmed by the larger, more populated Northern 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:36.440 states that weren't big on slavery. Because ultimately, as far 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.200 as it goes in the United States, when you are 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.359 conducting the census, you're trying to figure out how many 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:46.480 representative seats in the House of Representatives each state gets, 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.920 and it's done by population. Yeah, and as you'll see, 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:52.440 there are many, many, many, many many other things that 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:57.520 the census helps with these days. But the original two things, uh, 0:04:57.720 --> 0:04:59.920 that the census was supposed to do was to see 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:04.640 was fit for the military and available, and to count 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.719 people to see how many representatives you got. Those are 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.719 the two biggies, right. Well, let's talk about the the 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.200 first census. First of all, there were censuses in the Bible, 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:19.200 because census is right, I think, yes, since I know no, 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:26.760 that's a that's a karate instructor. Uh. There were censuses 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.560 in the Bible all over the Bible. Um. I remember 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:31.200 reading about them when I was a little kid. Yeah, 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.599 you knew all about sentences things, but um I did. 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.640 The first there's a little debate on the very first 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.800 census is in the North American continent. On the North 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:45.640 American Continent fifteen seventy six. Some claim Spanish King Philip 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:50.720 the two the two the sequel just made that up. 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:58.080 Spanish King Philip to Electric Boogaloo, Uh, that he wanted 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:02.200 information about the colonies, and I think sent American Native 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:06.360 American Indians through what is Mexico now with questions, right, 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.440 he hadn't thought it through very well though he sent 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:14.200 them with these questionnaires in Spanish, I imagine, but the 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:18.360 American Indians that he sent down there didn't speak Spanish. 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:22.320 That they apparently were not ones to quit or give 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.560 up whenever they faced a hardship because they just created 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:30.000 their own system of hieroglyphics to depict what goods each 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:34.320 town um produced that would be taxed by the King 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:38.240 of Spain. It is awesome. They even drew maps, their 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.240 own maps to point out where each town was. They 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.840 had no training whatsoever in cartography, and they didn't speak Spanish, 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.520 and yet they managed to come up with this apparently 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:52.840 beautifully illustrated census that they delivered to King Philip the second. 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:55.880 That's uh in uh in the Texas State Archives, I 0:06:55.960 --> 0:07:00.000 believe today. Yeah, and I have to say this um 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.239 our article sites an article from the Prescott Evening Courier 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.960 newspaper and it's from nineteen fifty. This article is and 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.520 it's pretty interesting, but if you scroll down on the 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:14.400 same page, there's another little article. The headline is agencies 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:20.160 asked to rid offices of sex perverts from nineteen I 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.400 wonder what apparently there's a there's a sex pervert Purge 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.120 in nineteen I wonder what you have to do in 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.480 nineteen fifty to be considered a sex pervert. I read 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.400 and it just said proof of sex perversion. So who 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:37.000 knows being gay, um, being a peeping tom or anything, 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:42.040 but sexually assaulting a woman. I'm sure you're a sex pervert. Um. 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:47.240 That's pretty funny. I mean not funny, but you know, interesting. Yes, 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.640 other people say the first North American census was in Canada, 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:55.920 back then New France, by Jean ten uh for the 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.080 King of France, and Toolon actually went around to all 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.920 the houses over the winner of sixty sixty six counted 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:09.320 all fifteen people of European descent. Uh. And then others say, no, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.559 we're gonna officially say the US census was the first 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:19.600 real census. The real first one was in Mexico. The 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.239 second first one was in Canada, but the real first 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.560 one took place in the United States. Uh. Hundreds of 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:30.000 years later, seventeen ninety George Washington signed it into law, 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:34.559 and in the Constitution is actually just um quote enumeration 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.160 of inhabitants end quote. But um as as you'll see 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.480 as we go on, there are many many more questions 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.320 and things we can glean now, yeah, well than just 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.800 the number of people. And now they're starting to get 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.679 a little more back to basics. In the two thousand census, 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.160 there was a long form one that had like fifty 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.640 two questions forget it. Yeah. Most people are like, I'm 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:56.480 not answering this. I think that was probably why they 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:58.360 changed it. Yeah. In two thousand and ten they came 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:00.720 up with a short form one that was sent to 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.840 everybody and it was ten questions. Yeah, and as we'll see, 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.160 literally three of those questions where how many people are 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.680 in your house? The first three questions different ways, Yeah, 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.320 because they're like, this is really the one um. I 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:16.240 thought that was kind of funny. Uh. Six d and 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.120 fifty U s. Marshals went in nineteen I'm sorry seventeen 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:23.080 ninety for that first census, got on their horses unannounced 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.880 and went house to house all over the nation with 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:30.360 their quill pens, scraps of paper literally counting heads um 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.800 cost about forty five grand. The two thousand and ten 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:38.520 Since this this surprised me that it shouldn't have thirteen 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:45.160 billion dollars and I thought, no, that's million, but it's billion. Yeah, 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:48.680 And it was actually that was less than they expected 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:50.559 it would call. They came in under budget by one 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.440 point six billion, which is pretty good. I hope whoever 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.240 was responsible for that made a name for themselves and 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.800 a big fat bonus. Oh yeah, I'm sure in the 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:05.400 form of like a h fifty dollar gift bond right 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.480 from the U. S. Treasury along bond. By the way, Chuck, 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.400 I was like, okay, well, forty five dollars in seventeen ninety. 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.760 Obviously it was probably equal to thirteen billion. Nope, not 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.760 even close. So West Egg inflation calculator doesn't go far 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:22.880 enough back to sev ninety, but it does go to 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:27.160 eighteen hundred, So in eighteen hundred dollars that forty five 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:33.319 thousand would be sixty five hundred today. So they were efficient. Yeah, 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:35.400 the scraps of paper and yeah, and the horses in 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.000 quill pen And says, that's some hard tack chewing tobacky. 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:43.400 Maybe a pot of beans, maybe as you're starting to 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:47.200 get a little extravagant. Uh. That first census um were 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:52.000 the original thirteen states plus districts of Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.320 in Tennessee, which was the Southwest Territory at the time. 0:10:55.600 --> 0:11:00.800 It's kind of funny Southwest Tennessee. Yeah. Uh. And these 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.200 were imagine in order the things that you had to 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.240 name on that census, the name of the head of 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:13.000 the household, number of free white males over sixteen, number 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:17.000 of free white males under sixteen, number of free white females, 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.640 number of other free persons, and then the number of slaves, 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.559 and then the number of sex perverts. Right, that was 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:26.720 the very first one. We'll take a little break and 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:28.680 come back and speed all the way up to eighteen 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:55.120 eighty right after this, mank alright, it's eighteen eighty. Yeah, 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:57.400 didn't that We're back to the future. Three was set? 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:01.000 M M was it? It was somewhere in there We're 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:05.480 living in Deadwood? Did you watch that? I started too, 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.360 and I was like, I don't have time for this man. Oh. 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:12.840 Shout out to the great Tim Omenson. He's an actor 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:15.439 on Deadwood and he's the stuff he should know listener. 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.400 Oh yeah, yeah, I met him at Podfast Nice. He's 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:23.520 on JV Club uh with me, and he's great. He's 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.840 like a real listener. And shout out to Kevin Pollock. Yeah, 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:29.160 who's another stuffy should know listener. We met at pod Fast. 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:31.760 He bum rushed our stage during the middle of our podcast, 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.439 which was very surprising. Yeah, that'll eventually be out right. 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:40.840 That's right. It's weird, is it? Kevin Pollock just surreal. 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:42.760 He was very sweet after. He was like, man, I 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.440 really am a fan guys like enough to come and 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:49.320 watch you. And he brought along Wayne Fetterman, a great 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.880 writer and comic who also as a listener. I didn't 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:54.840 get to meet him. Yeah, I talked to him afterward 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:58.360 about the Beatles and uh, obviously he had met our 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:01.240 shows coming out on Monty Python and he had met 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:05.600 Eric Idle the day before our podcast. Wow is that crazy? Yeah, 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:10.280 the universe was circling him. He was the drain. That's right. 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.960 So Kevin Pollock and his fiancee, Hello, Wayne Fetterman, Howdy, 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:19.559 Tim Omenson, good day, so nice and Tim, by the way, 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.520 is on that show Gallivant, which is no longer around 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.439 but you can catch on Netflix. This is great. Um 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.520 medieval musical show that, like the network was actually brave 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.520 enough to make really cool. It was cop Rock but 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:36.320 said in Medieval Times. Yeah, but good well cop Rock 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.040 wasn't good. I didn't see it. I didn't either I 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:41.000 was under the impression that was the same thing that 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.920 it was, like, Um, this is a musical cop procedural. 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.480 What is this doing on television? Get off? It had 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:49.920 nothing to do with whether it was good or not. 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.120 It was just two weird you know. Anyway, thanks to 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.439 those people and all the non celebrities who came. Sure, 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:58.280 everybody who came. Yeah, we don't want to just you 0:13:58.520 --> 0:13:59.840 have to have a big name for us to be 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:03.439 a appreciative that you came and saw our stinky, stupid episode. 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.000 Of course not all right, So I picked up in 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.040 eighteen eighty Deadwood is what sidetracked me. And that's when 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:13.240 they actually started using trained workers to work in the census, right, 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.800 not just phoedo marshals with their pots of beans. Uh. 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:18.760 And then about ten years later they actually had the 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:23.680 first machine to help them count their information, which was 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:28.440 primitive but useful. Dude. It was a computer. Yeah, the U. S. 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:33.360 Census Bureau has this unsung history of basically being the 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:37.360 first to use computers. Right, Yes, So they had this 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:40.320 machine that they built. I didn't see a name for it, 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.200 but basically it was a tabulating machine. So starting in 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.840 the eighteen nineties, Census, the census takers, who again, like 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.800 you said, we're now trained individuals. They were trained to 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.360 punch a hole into the response, right, how many people 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:57.200 under the age of sixteen in this house? Four? They 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.640 punch a hole wherever the four was right hanging Chad's 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.200 pretty much. That's why you wanted to make sure the 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.040 hole punched all the way through, so you wouldn't have 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:10.040 a hanging chats. Um. And when they turned in these cards, 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:14.320 they could feed them into this tabulator that would make 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.840 note of which hole was punched and in store this information. 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.000 It was a computer that the Census Bureau was using. 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:24.800 It was a steampunk computer pretty much. Yeah. It was 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:30.200 operated by Will Smith. Um was that wild Wild West? Boy? 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.160 What a stinker? Did you see the TV show that 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:35.440 it was based on the back in the day? That 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:40.280 was great? Yeah, what an imaginative TV show that was. Um. 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.160 So they'd used the real computers. Um. Starting in nineteen fifty, 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.800 the Census Bureau ordered one called the Univac. It's one 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.440 of those things that's huge and takes up a room 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:55.360 as mini machines working as one like the Whopper. Uh. 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.200 And then in two thousand and ten they finally introduced 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:03.920 GPS devices, and I was kind of didn't really understand 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.840 why until I read the next three sentences. I stopped 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.480 for a second. That's a weird thing to say. But 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.000 there were mistakes up to five of people counted when 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.920 SENSUS takers were doing this all by hand with paper 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.360 maps would assign people five percent of people to the 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:25.880 wrong congressional district accidentally. Did I say purpose way? Okay, Yeah, 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:27.640 I just wanted to make sure that they were cleared 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.680 of any wrongdoings, right, It was all a mistake. Uh. 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:35.600 And now with these GPS coordinating devices, they have a 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:39.800 point zero five error rate, which is a lot better 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:44.479 than five point zero very much. Um. Yeah, so jerrymandering 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:47.160 will be that much more difficult. We hope we need 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.760 to do an episode, and we should also say, since 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.880 we're talking about our episodes, if if you love this stuff, 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.120 go listen to our population episode where we talked a 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.800 lot about SENSUS taking. Uh and our maps episode will 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:05.000 really get your engine revving for real if you're a 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:11.080 g I S geek right or a stock right or so. 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:16.399 The Bureau works with the National Processing Center, uh, and 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.919 they have you know, it's not just like let me 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:21.119 take this form and look at it and write it down. 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:25.880 Like it's very automated these days, and um, pretty advanced. 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.080 What they do to ensure its accuracy, well at at 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:33.919 very least thorough Yeah, Like they take a picture of 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.200 every single finished questionnaire. Yeah, so there's an image file 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.280 of every single one. Okay, I'd say that, Well, that's 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:43.080 not advanced, but that's inch and toward advanced there, like 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:48.400 hold stale please uh and then uh they have um 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:54.439 a Scantron computer. Basically it's like that computer, but a 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.040 little more advanced. But it does the same thing optical 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:01.439 mark recognition. So like you fill in the bubble boom, 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.440 this computers on top of it a little more advanced. Yeah, 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.200 but it's the same principle. Yeah, but then it gets 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:13.320 super advanced I c R. Yeah, intelligent character recognition. And 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:18.360 isn't that just I mean that's something that reads people's handwriting, right. 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:22.120 And remember we did our another episode, the USPS one 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.320 on the post Office. It was a great episode, especially 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:27.560 those of you who here are stamps dot com ads 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.000 and think we hate the post Office. Go listen to 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:35.040 our USPS episode, which is basically an homage to the 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:40.120 Post Office by stamps dot com, so um that they 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:42.760 use the same thing for mail. Right, they have computers 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.359 that can read people's hand writing, and then there's a 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.719 there's a secondary process to where with the computers like 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.440 I don't know what this is, there's a human that 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.400 gets a little like a picture of it and they 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.520 type in what it is, and then they have a 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.639 q A department to finish it all out. Yeah, it's uh, 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.600 I think they do like a dent of any kind 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:08.200 of um of any kind of human data stuff they 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.760 go back and double check. That's right. Until nineteen sixty, 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:13.600 the census was pretty much a door to door affair. 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.600 This is so dumb and that what that? It was? 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.200 Door to door. Yes, there's too many people by this time. Yeah, 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:25.760 I agree. Yeah, we're talking tens hundreds of millions of people. Yeah. 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:27.720 But then they decided, all right, here's what we should do. 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:31.000 Let's mail these out to people, have them fill it out, 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.800 send it back, and we will just have to count 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.560 to uh the chucks of the world who do not 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:39.680 fill it out and send it back. Oh yeah, you 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.760 don't fill it out. Huh. I didn't fill it out, Um, 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.840 not on purpose. It just got away from me. You know, Chuck, 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:50.800 you just confess to a federal crime. I know, right, seriously, Yeah, 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:53.800 it's technically against the law. Hundred and eighty million people 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.199 in nineteen sixty Oh yeah, yeah, that is crazy to 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.320 count them all. Yeah, I did not feel it out. 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.760 I think you should. Now, well I'm going I'm a will. No, 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.679 you have to do it for two to know. They 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.280 found me. They came to my home. Oh okay, I 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:11.680 got you. Yeah, I just didn't fill it out and 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.399 send it in. Um, you didn't chase him oy with 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:17.800 a crossbow. Shall we talk about that? No? No, I'm 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.280 getting ahead of us. Um boy, that's a good tease though. 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.680 If people like Tod just just say crossbow. We did 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:27.400 an episode on crossbows too. Yeah. That one wasn't very good. 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:32.119 Oh yeah, yeah that was fine, just thin. Yeah, it 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:34.119 was a long time ago, though. They were thinner than 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.720 it was better than Jackhammers. Oh gosh, we should have 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:40.719 an episode where you just talk about all our stinkers. 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:44.960 That's pretty much every episode. So um se In the 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:49.520 two thousand and ten census returned those census forms so 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:53.840 not bad, and the remaining U twenty six of people 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:56.959 had to be counted by the one point four million 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:01.640 workers that are broken down into war categories. Right, there 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.560 was like of that one point four million, like almost 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:06.800 six hundred thousand of them. Where the people who actually 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:13.120 went out onto the streets and said, hey, you didn't 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:16.600 send in your form. What's your problem? Don't you love America? 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:23.640 You're called enumerators. Yeah. They're also administrators who basically manage 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:28.400 the divisions, uh Statticians, they check their math. And the 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:32.160 demographers like you were talking about, who totally walk out 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:34.959 on all those numbers. Yeah, they're the ones who take 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:38.960 these numbers because think about it, we're talking about ten questions, 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.200 the first three of which are how many people live 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:46.159 in your house? Right? Um? And these guys can basically 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:52.920 sus um some pretty interesting information from just information like that. 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:57.000 They can they can predict the future, they can call 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.119 the lotto numbers, they can do all sorts. If you 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:02.280 have a neighbor that's a demographer, you want to make 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.919 friends with them because they can make you very wealthy. Josh, 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:07.920 why would you take part in a census? Why is 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:11.119 it a big deal? Well, again, first of all, to 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:13.960 not take part of breaking the law, Chuck. But aside 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:17.840 from that, umure there's actually a lot that's done with 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:23.240 the census. So, yes, it's figuring out who, uh, which 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:27.560 states get how many seats in the House of Representatives. Um. 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:32.440 It's also figuring out where people live, their double checking 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:35.480 that their addresses on file. They have a national database 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.880 of all the addresses in the United States, every single address, 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:41.680 and they're going back and double checking all of them 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.600 as part of the census. But ultimately they're figuring out 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:49.879 what to do with about four hundred billion dollars in 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:54.080 state aid, state and local aid that the federal government 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:59.800 distributes every year. Yeah, so every every census equals a 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:04.280 out four trillion dollars worth of aid UM and how 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:07.040 it's going to be allocated. That's what the census figures 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:10.159 are used for in part. Yeah. So if you're like, well, 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:13.080 I don't want to take that stupid thing, but I 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:15.560 like my roads to be service and I like to 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:18.719 have that fire station nearby, and I want to make 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:21.240 sure there's a good school that can house all the 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:23.439 students that live here. And I want there to be 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:26.160 a senior center for mom and dad. Yeah, and boy 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:28.280 would be nice if there was a public library kind 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:30.159 of closer to me, right, and it would kill you 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:36.600 to put in the hearties. Kind of true though, because 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:40.720 private the private sector uses census numbers to determine where 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:45.919 to open the hearties. But just hearties, yeah, no, but 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:48.480 maybe where to open up a factory plant or something. 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:52.119 I mean, there are many, many, many things that the 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:55.400 census will satisfy that will help you out to make 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:58.360 sure that you have everything around you that you need 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:01.879 to for a healthy community. Right. Plus that, Um, those 0:24:01.920 --> 0:24:06.880 maps again are really important because usually nine eleven emergency 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:14.720 services use census maps to to basically move around the area. Uh. 0:24:14.760 --> 0:24:19.119 And if you're worried about your privacy, Um, it is 0:24:20.359 --> 0:24:23.680 held private for seventy two years this information. Yeah, and 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:26.159 a lot of people are like whatever, sensus takers are 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:32.399 blabb or mouths. Actually, they are sworn to protect your privacy. 0:24:32.440 --> 0:24:35.479 That's part of their job, no matter what. Like this 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:41.080