The statistical agency said in October that it will test and assess the feasibility of using postal carriers to knock on doors and collect information about households for the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident.
The field tests will be conducted next year in western Texas; tribal lands in Arizona; Colorado Springs, Colorado; western North Carolina; Spartanburg, South Carolina; and Huntsville, Alabama.
The unpublished Federal Register notice didn’t say which locations would test postal workers as census-takers who interview people about the race, sex, age, type of housing and relationships in their households.
The idea of using postal workers as census takers during the U.S. head count, often described as the largest civilian mobilization in the nation, has been kicking around for some time, given the knowledge that postal workers often have of the neighborhoods where they deliver mail.
In 2011, though, the U.S. Government Accounting Office said using postal carriers for the census at U.S. Postal Service pay wasn’t cost effective since, at the time, urban mail carriers were earning $41 an hour compared to temporary census-taker pay of $15 an hour.
“Because of the difference in pay rates and the large number of staff hours involved, it would not be practical for mail carriers to perform census duties in lieu of census workers because of the higher costs and disruption it would cause to U.S. mail service,” the GAO report said.
