Census

Los Angeles and state officials joined representatives of several other large population centers nationwide Thursday in filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Census Bureau to ensure that minorities and the poor are counted accurately in the 1990 census. The suit hopes to remedy "a subtle form of discrimination . . . that has been going on for years in this nation," said Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn at a press conference held simultaneously with one in New York City, where the suit was filed.

State officials in Minneapolis are offering a small monetary incentive of $1 to get prison inmates to fill out their federal census questionnaires. That is good money for an inmate, and even with a price tag that could reach $5,600, officials say it's a worthwhile way to reach the Census Bureau's goal of 90% participation in the country's prisons.

In a victory for California and other states with large immigrant populations, the House Wednesday rejected a Senate-passed proposal to bar the Census Bureau from counting illegal aliens. In the vote, the House turned aside the pleas of members from Northeastern and Midwestern states whose districts are losing population, and thus could be eliminated by the 1990 census. The action came on a procedural move that blocked Rep. Tom Ridge (R-Pa.

In an effort to count the nation's homeless population for the first time, the U.S. Census Bureau plans to hire street people for the 1990 Census to scout alleys, all-night movie theaters and other places where the homeless are likely to be found. The bureau makes a practice of hiring census takers from the groups being counted, Moises Carrasco, state coordinator of the Census Bureau's community awareness program in California, said in an interview Wednesday.

Adding a multiracial category to the 2000 census is unlikely to affect the way most black or white Americans identify themselves, but it could reduce the number of respondents who choose other racial categories, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. The creation of a mixed-race category has been proposed by multiracial advocacy groups who contend that existing classifications force them to make a choice between the racial identities of their parents.

Thirty minutes down bumpy highways from Washington's glamorous agencies, the government keeps its head-counters hidden in drab brick offices built to serve as a military hospital. It is here that plans are being readied for an exercise as vital to the American form of democracy as voting, and one that takes the mobilization needed for a small war. The event is the once-a-decade attempt to crack Americans' penchant for privacy and count every person and every household in the United States.

Defending his decision not to adjust the 1990 census, Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher assured Congress Tuesday that statistical surveys may be used to adjust funding levels for federal programs before the next census in the year 2000. An adjustment would mitigate the effects of a low population count on cities and states with large minority populations. Such jurisdictions would be most affected by Mosbacher's decision not to add to census figures about 5.

The percentage of Americans in their early 30s who have not yet married has more than doubled since 1970, and it appears that a growing minority will be single all of their lives, the Census Bureau reported Wednesday. Men between the ages of 30 and 34 who had never married accounted for 23.1% of males in that age group, according to estimates made last March. The figure was 9.4% in a 1970 Census Bureau report. Among women in that age group, 14.