Posts Tagged ‘census’
The US population ages, elder abuse and need for shelters grows
They’re weak, physically or mentally disabled or both, and often at the mercy of people they depend on the most: relatives and caretakers. They’re the nation’s fast-growing elderly population, and many are prime targets for abuse — physical, financial, sexual or emotional. Concern among the elderly and their advocates is mounting as the number of seniors soars and more of them live longer.
The Cedar Village Retirement Community in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason this month opened a long-term care facility to victims of abuse. It is the first elder abuse shelter in Ohio and one of only a half-dozen in the country, all of them funded by non-profit groups.
“There is a genuine recognition by those who are concerned by the abuse of elders that there need to be appropriate safe houses for them to get them out of immediate harm’s way,” says Sally Hurme, AARP’s senior project manager in education and outreach. “Nationally, we’ve been aware of the need for elder abuse shelters, but they’ve been slow in coming into fruition…”
The number of people who live to age 90 and beyond has tripled in the past three decades to 2 million and is projected to quadruple by 2050, according to the Census Bureau. The number of 65-plus grew 15.1% since 2000 to 40.3 million or 13% of the total population.
As their numbers grow, the dismal economy has forced many to live with children and grandchildren, a situation that may tempt the unscrupulous to take advantage of the old in their care…
Recession and more contributes to slowing population growth rate
The population of the United States grew this year at its slowest rate since the 1940s…as the gloomy economy continued to depress births and immigration fell to its lowest level since 1991…
And just maybe a few other factors like reflecting upon opportunity, choices in general?
The population grew by 2.8 million people from April 2010 to July 2011, according to the bureau’s new estimates. The annual increase, about 0.7 percent when calculated for the year that ended in July 2011, was the smallest since 1945, when the population fell by 0.3 percent in the last year of World War II.
“The nation’s overall growth rate is now at its lowest point since before the baby boom,” the Census Bureau director, Robert M. Groves, said in a statement…Underlying the modest growth was an immigration level that was the lowest in 20 years…slowed substantially when the housing market collapsed, and the jobs associated with its boom that were popular among immigrants disappeared…
A lagging birth rate also contributed. Births in the United States declined precipitously during the recession and its aftermath, down by 7.3 percent from 2007 to 2010, according to Kenneth M. Johnson, the senior demographer at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. There were slightly over four million births in the year that ended in July, the lowest since 1999.
Economic trauma tends to depress births. In the Great Depression, the birth rate fell by a third, Mr. Johnson said. It is unclear whether the current dip means that births are being delayed or that they are foregone, as they were in the Depression, he said.
In a particularly striking measure of economic distress, birth rates among Hispanics, who are concentrated in states hardest hit by the economic downturn, like Florida and Arizona, declined by 17 percent from 2007 to 2010, Mr. Johnson said. That is compared with a 3.8 percent decline for whites and a 6.7 percent decline for blacks. Rates dropped most sharply among young Hispanics, down by 23 percent for women ages 20 to 24 between 2007 and 2010.
Or – one might hope – sufficient education about everything from equal opportunities in a macho culture to the addition of birth control and abortion to a woman’s choices may have sufficiently affected women in the Hispanic population to bring the birth rate more in line with previous immigrant populations – after a generation or two. Certainly, a greater likelihood than Catholic ideology in the Hispanic community reversing what are normal processes among incomers unto the 2nd and 3rd generations of citizenship.
It’s about 70 years since my father’s extended family confronted the parish priest who took the occasion of my grandfather’s funeral to berate him and his brothers and sisters for not being good Catholics – like their father. After all, none of them had more than 2 children – yet they came from a family of 7. The 2nd generation in Anglophone North America had learned about birth control and our priest was pissed!
I doubt if he was any happier when my father waited till the funeral was over and done – and then told the priest to take his church and archaic rules and stick them where the sun don’t shine. And the whole family walked away from that church.
A little S&M works in aid of the Hungarian census
Hungary has produced a provocative video advertisement to encourage more people to fill out its national census online next month.
In a video posted on social networking sites Wednesday, a topless young woman in red underwear, lacy black stockings and holding a whip opens the door to a census taker, who, realizing he has arrived at an inopportune moment — offers her the option of completing the census online.
“We want to reach the younger generation as well, and the internet is more for this generation, it uses their language,” Imre Dobossy, a top communications official at the Central Statistics Office (KSH) told Reuters.
The last time Hungarians were counted was 10 years ago, and this will be first time they will be able to fill out the questionnaire online.
Sometimes you shouldn’t answer the door.
Teabagger ideology + neocon nutballs = average census, after all
The $15 billion U.S. Census is near completion with a response rate unchanged from a decade ago, defying concerns it might be derailed by anti-government sentiment and widespread violence against census takers.
Conservative figures like television commentator Glenn Beck and Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann had urged Americans to provide only minimal information on the census form.
That sparked fears that Obama administration critics such as supporters of the limited-government Tea Party movement would hinder the once-in-a-decade project.
But now that the counting is nearly done, government officials and political analysts say there is no sign that the political climate had much impact on the census.
The mail-in response rate for the 10-question census was unchanged at 72 percent from 2000, bucking a national trend showing declining participation in surveys of any kind. And despite technical challenges, it is on schedule and under budget.
“This proves that Americans still have common sense,” said political analyst Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “You’re only hurting your own localities when you don’t fill in your form.”
I’m convinced American have some common sense – once in a while.
We’re truly conditioned to be led around by the nose by the superimposition of advertising on every aspect of life – for decades. There’s probably a gene for beer commercials, by now.
You have to hope that most people will just raise their eyebrows and lower the volume when they see the looneybird brigade on television.
Tories dropping census after 2 centuries
The Census, the official population count carried out by the UK Government, is to be scrapped after more than 200 years…
Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said the Census, which takes place every 10 years, was an expensive and inaccurate way of measuring the number of people in Britain.
Instead, the Government is examining different and cheaper ways to count the population more regularly, using existing public and private databases, including credit reference agencies.
It will represent a historic shift in the way that information about the nation’s population, religion and social habits is gathered.
The suggestion is likely to be approved by Cabinet next week. It will be too late to prevent the next Census on March 27, 2011 from going ahead, although Mr Maude said he was looking at ways of reducing the £482million cost.
Britain has carried out a Census every decade since 1801, with the exception of 1941 during the Second World War.
It is the only time that everybody in the country is counted, and is used by the Government to determine spending priorities and track population movements.
Mr Maude, who has responsibility for the Census, told The Daily Telegraph that the Government was looking for a “fundamentally” better way of doing it. “There are, I believe, ways of doing this which will provide better, quicker information, more frequently and cheaper,” he said.
“Cheaper” being the operative word. Cost is always a higher priority than accuracy or usefulness for beancounters and Tories.
Next year, they plan on replacing the Queen with Sarah Palin. She’ll work for less and say funnier things about working people.
Multiracial Americans recognized by the new census
This month, the Census Bureau will remind Americans that racial classifications remain an integral part of the country’s social and legal fabric while, at the same time, recognizing that racial lines are blurring for a growing number of people… The government will give the nation’s more than 308 million people the opportunity to define their racial makeup as one race or more.
The agency expects the number of people who choose multiple races to be significantly higher than the 2000 Census, when the government first allowed more than one race choice. Responses to this year’s survey will provide for the first time a glimpse at the evolution of racial identification: Those who were children in 2000 and were identified as one race by their parents may respond differently as adults today and select more than one.
“It’s a historic opportunity to see how things have changed or how things have not changed,” says Nicholas Jones, chief of the Census Bureau racial statistics branch. Multiracial Americans are “one of the fastest-growing demographic groups in the country. There’s an increasing number of children born to parents of different races…”
At the same time, growing ethnic and racial diversity fueled by record immigration and rates of interracial marriages have made the USA’s demographics far more complex. By 2050, there will be no racial or ethnic majority as the share of non-Hispanic whites slips below 50%, according to Census projections…
• About three of 10 marriages involving Hispanics or Asians are now mixed-race, and almost one of six involving blacks are mixed race, according to an analysis by demographer Frey.
• About 9% of marriages involving non-Hispanic whites are mixed.
• A 10th or more of all marriages in 13 states — most in the West — were mixed race in 2008.
• Thirty-six states had at least a 20% increase in mixed-race marriages since 2000, including Florida, Virginia and Texas. A fifth of marriages in California and New Mexico were mixed…
“For the younger part of our society, race is going to be less of a factor when they decide partners, whom they’re going to church with, where they’re going to live,” William Frey says. “It won’t be exactly color-blind but much more color-blind.”
Excepting, of course, the larger proportion of decision-makers who own and control the economic and political structure of the United States. They’re stuck firmly into defending the racist analyses, the fears and answers determining foreign and domestic policies offensive to much of the world.
RTFA. Lengthy, lots of detail. Guaranteed to disturb those who still haven’t been able to get past Nixon-era politics.
Republicans hate census – but willing to cop to the look!
Have you filled out your “2010 Congressional District Census” yet?
It’s arriving this week in mailboxes in Minnesota, New York and Washington state. At first glance, it might appear to be related to the upcoming once-a-decade count of every man, woman and child in the United States.
It’s not. It’s a Republican fundraiser and opinion poll…
“This is as egregious as it gets,” said Luz Maria Frias, director of St. Paul’s Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity and the city’s point person for raising awareness of the federal 2010 U.S. census.
“Between now and April 1, there will be an inundation of census information, and the timing of this is really suspect. It smells.”
Inside the envelope, which is labeled “DO NOT DESTROY — OFFICIAL DOCUMENT,” beneath “2010 Congressional District Census” and above the relevant congressional district and alphanumeric “Census Tracking Code” (which appears to be meaningless), appears the smaller-type phrase: “Commissioned by the Republican Party.”
Understand that Republican tactics are formulated by the same slimeballs who send phony mailers to our homes – trying to look like they’re from the Social Security Administration – to sell us supplemental medicare insurance from Bill Frist.
Republicans want undocumentados kept off census
A controversial amendment that would require the Census Bureau to ask for the first time whether people are in the USA illegally is headed for a Senate vote.
Proposed last week by Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Bob Bennett of Utah, the amendment would exclude illegal immigrants from the population count used to allocate congressional seats after the 2010 Census. It also would require the Census to ask people whether they are citizens…
The amendment comes less than six months before 2010 Census questionnaires are mailed to 135 million households. About 425 million forms have already been printed, according to the bureau. Some are in different languages; others are duplicates that will go to houses that do not respond to the first mailing.
The Census Bureau is launching an outreach campaign to persuade Americans that next year’s national head count will be a simple, painless process.
Well, it would have been painless if it wasn’t for the xenophobia and hopes at vote-getting by Republicans. I guess they’re giving up on getting any Hispanic votes at all – the way they’re going about it.
Since the first Census in 1790, the bureau has routinely asked in various surveys whether people are native-born or foreign-born, but it has never asked about legal status.
Immigrants often are the hardest to count because many mistrust government, especially if they are in the USA illegally. Crackdowns on illegal immigration at the border and at work sites have made outreach for next year’s Census even more challenging.
Republicans whine about the Census being too intrusive – unless their own needs are the root cause of the intrusion.
Louisiana has lost lots of Black folks since Katrina and the FEMA disaster that followed. Enough so the state might lose a Congress-critter. That’s scary because redistricting might sort gerrymandered districts invented to keep Republicans in office.
Meanwhile, Federal funds allocated to policing, schools and hospital emergency rooms are based on population – not bigoted bickering.
Murdering federal workers still an acceptable rightwing sport
Teaching in a local school
When Bill Sparkman told retired trooper Gilbert Acciardo that he was going door-to-door collecting census data in rural Kentucky, the former cop drew on years of experience for a warning: “Be careful.”
The 51-year-old Sparkman was found this month hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest…and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment.
“Even though he was with the Census Bureau, sometimes people can view someone with any government agency as ‘the government.’ I just was afraid that he might meet the wrong character along the way up there,” said Acciardo, who directs an after-school program at an elementary school where Sparkman was a frequent substitute teacher.
The Census Bureau has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, until the investigation is complete, an official said…
The Census Bureau has yet to begin door-to-door canvassing for the 2010 head count, but thousands of field workers are doing smaller surveys on various demographic topics on behalf of federal agencies. Next year, the Census Bureau will dispatch up to 1.2 million temporary employees.
No doubt the Beck/Limbaugh brigade will praise their God for the death of another ordinary human being who chose to work for his country.
Census work wasn’t Sparkman’s full-time job. He also was a substitute teacher and an Eagle Scout who volunteered for the Boy Scouts.
Obviously part of the Socialist Conspiracy.
Why are Republicans against the U.S. census?
Click on photo for the answer!
