On the Census

Article I of the U.S. Constitution requires that a census (the counting of the population) must be taken every ten years, and this has been done every ten years since 1790. In 1790 the census counted 4 million people living in what was then the United States of America. Today, the 2000 census counted more than 281 million persons.

The information gathered by each census is important for a number of reasons:

1. Being that the United States is a democracy, people are elected to different positions on the basis of the population that a given area has. Thus, those elected to the House of Representatives in Washington, plus those elected to the New York State Senate, the New York State Assembly, and New York City's City Council are all elected from districts whose boundaries are traced according to population density. For example, the U.S. House of Representative has a maximum number of 435 members. Each state sends members to the House according to its population. Thus, California, the state with the most population, sends 53 people to the House while Wyoming, the state with the smallest population, sends only one person. Because the 2000 census shows that the population of New York State decreased from that of 1990 it will loose two representatives to the House in Washington. Other states that gained population, like Florida, Texas, Georgia, and Arizona, will send more people to the House of Representatives in Washington.

2. The information collected by the census is used by both the local and the federal governments to follow the movement of population. On the basis of population change and distribution by place and age the government plans, provides services, and build things as schools, roads, hospitals, and airports.

Private industry also uses the information from the census. Thus marketers and corporations will make use of the census to market and sell products, make products available to certain areas, and target specific segments of the population (like young people) for their products.