Big business couldn't operate if it didn't have economic and demographic information. It's a way of locating the sick and the poor so as to send federal money to help them. Another indication of poverty is a home that doesn't have indoor plumbing. Jones told me about a conversation with the mayor of West Point, a town of 1,600 in White County. The mayor credited receiving a grant to build sewers in his town to the number of outdoor toilets reported in the last census.
Federal laws prohibit any other use of census information.
During World War II the Defense Department was turned down when it asked the Bureau of the Census to give it the names and addresses of Japanese residents to make it easier to round them up and relocate them from the west coast. Last weekend, only 60 percent of the census forms had been returned, much fewer than at this point in the 1990 census. This is the foundation that has been bringing suits against President Clinton. Fifty-nine percent of the forms have been returned from Arkansas. If yours is still lying around the house, take a few minutes to fill it out and send it in.