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From June 2001 NASW NEWS NASW worked with the U.S. Census Monitoring Board. In late March, NASW sent Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans a letter strongly protesting the Bush administration's decision to use unadjusted population figures in determining census figures for redistricting purposes. The letter to Evans asserts that the decision not to use statistical sampling to count the population, as recommended by many on the staff of the U.S. Census Bureau, leaves millions of people uncounted. As a consequence, said the letter from NASW Interim Executive Director Toby Weismiller, "millions of people — primarily African Americans, Hispanics, low-income individuals and children — will not be appropriately represented in state legislative districts." "Multiple federal programs, ranging from housing to highway funding, from education and job training to pollution control, utilize some aspect of population data to determine federal funding amounts," said the letter. Getting a more accurate population count through statistical sampling is a civil rights issue that NASW will persist in advocating in future years, said Weismiller. NASW worked with the U.S. Census Monitoring Board and Kenneth Blackwell, its Republican co-chair, in educating social workers about the importance of methodology in the census count, said Lawrence Moore, governmental affairs senior associate. Back to NASW NEWS Contents
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