I can be fined $100 for not filling out a survey?

[FrugalSaver]

I received a letter in the mail from the census  bureau titled "American Community Survey" saying I'd be fined $100 if i didn't provide them the info they were asking for.

Have any of y'all encountered this?

[turketron]

First result when Googling "census bureau fine:" http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2014/jan/09/us-census-bureau/americans-must-answer-us-census-bureau-survey-law-/

[rpr]

I got a somewhat related survey on employment and household finances etc. It was a royal pain. It lasted 3+ years and would consume about 30+ minutes  a month on the phone for 3 months in a row every year.  Supposedly it would be used to determine how  dollars get allocated to your zip code/community. I did call up the US Census Bureau first to determine if the person that called me was a genuine officer. Your address gets randomly picked and then you have to answer these questions. I don't know why they don't have an online version of it.

[nobodyspecial]

So the government spams annoyed people and believes the answers?

I think I just discovered an explanation for a lot of things ....

[rpr]

So the government spams annoyed people and believes the answers?

I think I just discovered an explanation for a lot of things ....

The fine can be much higher for willfully providing incorrect answers :)

[seattlecyclone]

The Constitution gives the federal government the power to conduct a census every ten years for the purpose of dividing up Congressional representation between the states.

The Census Bureau takes the position that since many of the questions on the American Community Survey used to be part of the "long form" census, Congress has the power to compel people to respond to this survey.

Other people believe that any questions beyond a simple count of people living in your home are unnecessary for the purpose of apportioning representation to Congress and therefore your responses can't be compelled.

Do what you think is right. I personally answered the questions last time I got it.

[PhrugalPhan]

I got the long form survey for the last two decennial surveys, and boy they were fun.  I don't know of anyone that got picked for that two times running. :(   If they tried to get me to answer surveys over the phone I would say "sure, pay for my phone service and you get all the answers you want".  The joys of not having a land line they can access. :D

[FIRE me]

I received a letter in the mail from the census  bureau titled "American Community Survey" saying I'd be fined $100 if i didn't provide them the info they were asking for.

Have any of y'all encountered this?

No one has ever been prosecuted for not responding. However, about 33% of those who don't respond get a knock on their door attempting an in person interview. Of course, no warrant means you don't have to answer the door.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Community_Survey


About a year ago I got a voluntary health survey from a local government (I think it was State, but it may have been County). I would have got a free gift card for answering page after page of very personal health and lifestyle questions. I threw out the survey. Weeks later, they sent a letter, more or less in disbelief that a $25 dollar gift card wasn't worth giving up my privacy. I trashed that letter too, and I haven't heard from them since.

If I ever get the ACS, I'll probably write “None of your damn business” in red crayon on each and every page, then mail it back.

[randymarsh]

I worked on the 2010 Census and it was amazing to see how many paranoid nutjobs refused to answer (requiring us to send a person to their home up to 3 times costing much more than if they would have just filled out the damn form).

Surprised to find some of them hanging out on MMM.

[nobodyspecial]

What's the point of the NSA monitoring all your movements, purchases, phone calls and internet use if they then have to send out silly questionaires ?

[OneDollarAtATime]

If it's as time consuming as rpr says it is, I would just pay the $100 and tell them to go away.

But based on the later responses, I'm not sure that's an option...?  It almost seems like you can pay the $100 fine then they show up anyways.

[Arktinkerer]

Last census they came round with all their questions.  We, as a family, just gave them the number of people in the household and how many were of voting age.  We refused to provide any more info.  I would do the same on a survey like the one mentioned. 

[rocketpj]

Meh, I like surveys.  I particularly love political surveys, because I know they don't call many people and I know my opinions are not in the majority with a lot of topics.  So I get to skew the polls a little bit.  It certainly seems more effective than voting, as I have almost never voted for a winner (outside of local politics).

[Goldielocks]

I received a letter in the mail from the census  bureau titled "American Community Survey" saying I'd be fined $100 if i didn't provide them the info they were asking for.

Have any of y'all encountered this?

A census is not a survey.   
As far as I can tell, the difference is the legal obligation to answer...

[JLee]

I got a somewhat related survey on employment and household finances etc. It was a royal pain. It lasted 3+ years and would consume about 30+ minutes  a month on the phone for 3 months in a row every year.  Supposedly it would be used to determine how  dollars get allocated to your zip code/community. I did call up the US Census Bureau first to determine if the person that called me was a genuine officer. Your address gets randomly picked and then you have to answer these questions. I don't know why they don't have an online version of it.

Oh fuck, that lasts for three years!?  I had one about 3 months ago, then they said they'd do a follow up call in 3 months...which they did, and they said there's another one.  Doing this for three years is ridiculous.

I could change my phone number...because that's how they got me in the first place.

[Prairie Stash]

I worked on the 2010 Census and it was amazing to see how many paranoid nutjobs refused to answer (requiring us to send a person to their home up to 3 times costing much more than if they would have just filled out the damn form).

Surprised to find some of them hanging out on MMM.

1933 Germany Census - Tracking all the ethic minorities, the single worse case of the census being used against people
1942 U.S. Census - rounding up Japanese, Italian and German Americans - that's someone's grandparents, these are people that had their lives destroyed by filling out a census
"The United States Census Bureau assisted the internment efforts by providing confidential neighborhood information on Japanese Americans" - Wikipedia
Japanese Canadian internment - same thing as the U.S. (not a proud bit of history), lots of countries share guilt

I would hold off calling them nutjobs, its tough to trust governments that use census forms to round up citizens. If my grandparents or parents had stories like that I wouldn't trust the census takers either. Have a little empathy for people, some of those "nutjobs" have some dark family histories. I'm sure the census takers back then were honest and decent people, however these people had their lives ruined by the Census. Some of these same people are alive today, how would you tell them to trust you this time? Your predecessors locked them away...

When I read about Trump and the Muslims or Mexicans I wonder how he's going to track people?  It's up to the census takers to build the trust, trust they broke is hard to regain.

[NoStacheOhio]

Tangentially related: we got a letter in the mail a month or two ago about the CPI survey. It said they would be calling "a phone number associated with our address," but didn't specify. We haven't received any calls. There used to be a land line, but that got disconnected when we bought the place last Spring, so maybe that's where they're trying to call?

[MMM98]

I blew that survey off in 2000, low and behold I got that knock on the door, at my farm in rural Midwest, on a Saturday.  Yes, they do come and look for you.

[Little Nell]

And no one here is thinking of census work as a side gig?

[nobodyspecial]

And no one here is thinking of census work as a side gig?

Good regular work

[franklin w. dixon]

NO GUBMINT GONNA POROPORTIONALLY REPRESENT ME 'N' BESSIE. I DONE NAMED MY RIFLE BESSIE ON ACCOUNT OF HOW IM VERY LONELy

[paddedhat]

I worked on the 2010 Census and it was amazing to see how many paranoid nutjobs refused to answer (requiring us to send a person to their home up to 3 times costing much more than if they would have just filled out the damn form).

Surprised to find some of them hanging out on MMM.

Bullshit. This is not a conversation about a census, it's about repeated, invasive questioning.

 I had this whole routine happen about a decade ago. I was traveling, thousands of miles from home, and still (regrettably) had a land line. The woman was like a fucking shark, leaving continual messages, notices at my door, then questioning neighbors as to my absence from my home, etc...... I ended up with neighbors who were savvy enough to NOT give her my cell number, but still called me to find out if I was in some kind of trouble.  I was so pissed that I told her that I would not be cooperating. The next month, another woman called for a follow up interview. I had calmed down enough to at least be civil to this one. That is until she started comparing my data from last's months questions, to my current answers. It turns out that the first "nutjob" (as you like to refer to others) had fabricated my responses in order to claim that she had succeeded in interviewing me. That was the end of that game, permanently. Unless you are accompanied by a federal marshal with a warrant, don't show up at my place to waste my time. If that puts me in your "paranoid nutjob" column, then I'll gladly wear the label with pride. Life is too short to waste forty five minutes of it answering inane questions from fool, on a repeated basis.

[randymarsh]

I worked on the 2010 Census and it was amazing to see how many paranoid nutjobs refused to answer (requiring us to send a person to their home up to 3 times costing much more than if they would have just filled out the damn form).

Surprised to find some of them hanging out on MMM.

Bullshit. This is not a conversation about a census, it's about repeated, invasive questioning.

 I had this whole routine happen about a decade ago. I was traveling, thousands of miles from home, and still (regrettably) had a land line. The woman was like a fucking shark, leaving continual messages, notices at my door, then questioning neighbors as to my absence from my home, etc...... I ended up with neighbors who were savvy enough to NOT give her my cell number, but still called me to find out if I was in some kind of trouble.  I was so pissed that I told her that I would not be cooperating. The next month, another woman called for a follow up interview. I had calmed down enough to at least be civil to this one. That is until she started comparing my data from last's months questions, to my current answers. It turns out that the first "nutjob" (as you like to refer to others) had fabricated my responses in order to claim that she had succeeded in interviewing me. That was the end of that game, permanently. Unless you are accompanied by a federal marshal with a warrant, don't show up at my place to waste my time. If that puts me in your "paranoid nutjob" column, then I'll gladly wear the label with pride. Life is too short to waste forty five minutes of it answering inane questions from fool, on a repeated basis.

You can actually just respond to it online...no need to talk to any "fool". But you're completely right. The ACS does ask invasive questions such as "What type of fuel is used to heat your home?" and "Do you have access to Internet at your home?"

THE HORROR!

[franklin w. dixon]

Life is too short to answer a demographer's question once every ten years, at most. That's why I pre-emptively shoot anyone who walks by on the sidewalk. Can't be too careful, nor too rootin', nor too tootin'.

[franklin w. dixon]

Why time was a peace officer asked me if I could move my car out of the fire lane and right then 'n' there I detonated the atomic bomb I carry around for self-defense. Oft must the tree of liberty be watered by the blood of random nobodies. #yolo.

[Goldielocks]

Ok you may make light of it, but the Canadian farm survey, long form, takes three hours to answer, repeats, as noted above to validate and benchmark quarterly, and is pretty specific about ones business activities. I heard from a few otherwise reasonable people about it.

[paddedhat]

I worked on the 2010 Census and it was amazing to see how many paranoid nutjobs refused to answer (requiring us to send a person to their home up to 3 times costing much more than if they would have just filled out the damn form).

Surprised to find some of them hanging out on MMM.

Bullshit. This is not a conversation about a census, it's about repeated, invasive questioning.

 I had this whole routine happen about a decade ago. I was traveling, thousands of miles from home, and still (regrettably) had a land line. The woman was like a fucking shark, leaving continual messages, notices at my door, then questioning neighbors as to my absence from my home, etc...... I ended up with neighbors who were savvy enough to NOT give her my cell number, but still called me to find out if I was in some kind of trouble.  I was so pissed that I told her that I would not be cooperating. The next month, another woman called for a follow up interview. I had calmed down enough to at least be civil to this one. That is until she started comparing my data from last's months questions, to my current answers. It turns out that the first "nutjob" (as you like to refer to others) had fabricated my responses in order to claim that she had succeeded in interviewing me. That was the end of that game, permanently. Unless you are accompanied by a federal marshal with a warrant, don't show up at my place to waste my time. If that puts me in your "paranoid nutjob" column, then I'll gladly wear the label with pride. Life is too short to waste forty five minutes of it answering inane questions from fool, on a repeated basis.

You can actually just respond to it online...no need to talk to any "fool". But you're completely right. The ACS does ask invasive questions such as "What type of fuel is used to heat your home?" and "Do you have access to Internet at your home?"

THE HORROR!

Wrong. As I clearly stated, this event happened about a decade ago. It was either a face to face, or phone interview, online was NOT an option. As for your cynical claim that it was limited to simple questions, like home heating source, more bullshit. As it was heading into, "Are any of your household members identified as disabled?" and " Do any members require medical services on a monthly, or weekly basis?" it was time to end this invasion of privacy. Naturally, all this needs to be viewed in the context of the interviewer, clearly, yet accidentally, disclosing that last month's interview had been totally fabricated by another employee.

[By the River]

I did followup work for the 2010 census.  They gave me a list of households that had not returned the census form and I knocked on doors trying to get the information.  $17 per hour on your own schedule plus mileage.   It did cause a little internal dissension as I am a libertarian, but Article 1 section 2 requires an enumeration of the population.  The way I made peace was that when talking to the people, I really emphasized that I needed the number of residents and the rest was optional.  I may not be hired again because many on my lists refused to answer the ethnicity and language questions. 

[fallstoclimb]

I understand that this thread is riling up the libertarians of the board, but I would like to point out that

a)  your data are protected and de-identified.  Believe it or not, the government works really, really hard to protect individual level survey information.

b) by not participating in a survey, you are simply guaranteeing that your experiences won't be reported, which means that you and people like you will not be represented.

c) the reason interviewers work so hard to gain cooperation from nonrespondents is because, well, its their job, and also because the very people who are the least likely to participate are usually the people whose participation is the most important in order to create a representative dataset.

I suppose as libertarians you are against most/all government programs, but these programs exist regardless, and surveys are what help them not run blind. 

There are also procedures in place to catch any interviewer who fabricates data. 

[seattlecyclone]

On the one hand, yes it's important to collect this data so that programs can be administered based on sound demographic data. By the same token it's also in each person's best interest to answer the questions so that similarly situated persons don't get the shaft due to an underestimate caused by bad data.

On the other hand, the Constitutional justification for requiring compliance with questions that are irrelevant to Congressional apportionment seems very flimsy at best.

[clarkfan1979]

So the government spams annoyed people and believes the answers?

I think I just discovered an explanation for a lot of things ....

This will result in more representative data than letting people voluntarily do it without a penalty. If voluntary, only a specific type of demographic completes it.

[olivia]

Why time was a peace officer asked me if I could move my car out of the fire lane and right then 'n' there I detonated the atomic bomb I carry around for self-defense. Oft must the tree of liberty be watered by the blood of random nobodies. #yolo.

YOLO=You Obstruct Liberty, Obama!  Keep yer questions off my body!