{"id":5448,"date":"2010-05-26T11:24:09","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T15:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=5448"},"modified":"2010-05-26T11:24:09","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T15:24:09","slug":"fire-the-census-worker-hire-the-postman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/5448\/fire-the-census-worker-hire-the-postman\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire the Census Worker, Hire the Postman?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For my fellow limited government types out there, here\u2019s an idea to save money and<\/em> get the decennial census done competently: hire postal workers to count heads.\u00a0 The suggestion comes from one of the Census Bureau\u2019s \u201cseasonal\u201d workers quoted in the New York Post<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

I am totally convinced that the Census work could be very easily done by the US Postal Service.<\/p>\n

“When I was trying to look for an address or had a question about a building, I would ask the postman on the beat. They knew the history of the route and can expand in detail who moved in or out etc. I have found it interesting that if someone works one hour, they are included in the labor statistics as a new job being full.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, you read that last sentence correctly.\u00a0 Whenever the Census Bureau hires a person for at least one hour of work, they can report to the Labor Department that a new job has been created.\u00a0 And that\u2019s true even if the one-hour worker gets fired and rehired multiple times \u2013 multiple hires equal multiple \u201cjobs.\u201d\u00a0 Our tax dollars at work.\u00a0 (Or, is it play?)<\/p>\n

With these facts, it seems like the census could be achieved much more efficiently by getting the postal worker on the street to knock on the door, deliver some mail, and casually ask how many people live in the unit.\u00a0 Since people are already comfortable with their usual postal worker, having them ask the questions would be much more likely to guarantee a response.\u00a0 And, it would save taxpayers the indignity of funding inflated job creation numbers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For my fellow limited government types out there, here\u2019s an idea to save money and get the decennial census done competently: hire postal workers to count heads.\u00a0 The suggestion comes from one of the Census Bureau\u2019s \u201cseasonal\u201d workers quoted in the New York Post. I am totally convinced that the Census work could be very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1312,454,1311,1240],"class_list":["post-5448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-census-bureau","tag-job-creation","tag-postal-service","tag-taxpayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5448"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5451,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448\/revisions\/5451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}