More Waisted Tax Money 2010 Census

Monkeydad · 03-09-2010, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlmdub130

i know i'm the last one that should point out spelling and grammar errors but...

they have been pushing the ads on tv like crazy around northern va and it's not like the will ever get a true number on the people in the metro area because half the people in northern va are scared of getting deported. if they ever want a real number they should figure out a way to get people to become legal citizens

If you were truly a grammar expert, you would have also noticed that "tryed" should be "tried". You also missed the sarcasm of his post.

tryfuhl · 03-09-2010, 04:34 PM

prelim mailings are done to increase sendback rate, it works

it's also to open your eyes up to potential scams.. so if someone in a month comes by.. or you've already done something, etc

tryfuhl · 03-09-2010, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buster

If you were truly a grammar expert, you would have also noticed that "tryed" should be "tried". You also missed the sarcasm of his post.

If you were truly a language expert you'd know that that would be spelling and not grammar.

firstdown · 03-09-2010, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tryfuhl

prelim mailings are done to increase sendback rate, it works

it's also to open your eyes up to potential scams.. so if someone in a month comes by.. or you've already done something, etc

Not so sure about stopping scams but I guess next time I do a mailing I'll send a mailing prior telling the customer I will be doing a mailing. Then I will send the mailing refering to the prior mailing and if I do not get a response I will send a reminder mailing about the other two mailings. Before any of the mailings go out I will send an employee to get their GPS location and confirm their location. Then if none of this works I will send another employee out to get the survey done in person which could have been done by the guy who went to get their GPS location before any mailing went out. Boy just wait until we get federal health care. I guess I'll have to mail them a claim notice prior to myself getting injured or sick.

tryfuhl · 03-09-2010, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by firstdown

Not so sure about stopping scams but I guess next time I do a mailing I'll send a mailing prior telling the customer I will be doing a mailing. Then I will send the mailing refering to the prior mailing and if I do not get a response I will send a reminder mailing about the other two mailings. Before any of the mailings go out I will send an employee to get their GPS location and confirm their location. Then if none of this works I will send another employee out to get the survey done in person which could have been done by the guy who went to get their GPS location before any mailing went out. Boy just wait until we get federal health care. I guess I'll have to mail them a claim notice prior to myself getting injured or sick.

saden1 · 03-09-2010, 10:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by firstdown

Not so sure about stopping scams but I guess next time I do a mailing I'll send a mailing prior telling the customer I will be doing a mailing. Then I will send the mailing refering to the prior mailing and if I do not get a response I will send a reminder mailing about the other two mailings. Before any of the mailings go out I will send an employee to get their GPS location and confirm their location. Then if none of this works I will send another employee out to get the survey done in person which could have been done by the guy who went to get their GPS location before any mailing went out. Boy just wait until we get federal health care. I guess I'll have to mail them a claim notice prior to myself getting injured or sick.

That could be cost effective for you but you got to figure out if that's true for you. Let's do some rough math to figure out whether it's worth it for taxpayers to pay for sending out these notification letters.

Given:
1. The government saves 85 million for every 1 percent of forms returned.
2. The current estimate of the number of households in the united states is 115 million which implies 115 million notification letters will initially be sent out (assuming since we really don't know if everyone was sent a notification letter).
3. The USPO bulk mail rate is $0.233 per mail (this number is conservative).

If you do the math it costs the government $26,795,000 (115 million * 0.233) to send these notification letters. At cost of ~27 million and the potential of saving 510 million to 1.02 billion sending these notifications is a no brainer even if you don't take into consideration printing cost. Hell, if sending these notification gets 0.5% more people to respond you should send them out!

tryfuhl · 03-09-2010, 11:05 PM

Nice, actually kicked the numbers out. I love when people think that they're smarter based on opinion vs those who are actually paid to project these things.

Mattyk · 03-10-2010, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saden1

That could be cost effective for you but you got to figure out if that's true for you. Let's do some rough math to figure out whether it's worth it for taxpayers to pay for sending out these notification letters.

Given:
1. The government saves 85 million for every 1 percent of forms returned.
2. The current estimate of the number of households in the united states is 115 million which implies 115 million notification letters will initially be sent out (assuming since we really don't know everyone was sent a notification letter).
3. The USPO bulk mail rate is $0.233 per mail (this is number is conservative).

If you do the math it costs the government $26,795,000 (115 million * 0.233) to send these notification letters. At cost of ~27 million and the potential of saving 510 million to 1.02 billion sending these notifications is a no brainer even if you don't take into consideration printing cost. Hell, if sending these notification gets 0.5% more people to respond you should send them out!

So there's a method to the madness... amazing

saden1 · 03-10-2010, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

BS and if Bush had done it you would have hated it. The census gets free advert through the schools, and public health organizations. Glad you support the initiatives, but I wouldn't have expected otherwise.

I don't believe you know me well enough to know that I would have hated it if Bush had done it.
There is no such thing as free advertising. I'm confidant you're aware of this.
You don't address the issue of cost effectiveness of the ad. You look at the 2.4 million price tag like a Neanderthal would and pound your chess while screaming "oga-buga" with glee and ignorance.

Check this out, yeah, according Nielson the SB had 105.97 million viewers. At 2.5 million price tag the cost of the ad per viewer is ~0.024 cents. Bang!

saden1 · 03-10-2010, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mattyk

So there's a method to the madness... amazing

It is only madness if you don't understand...to understand is to ask why. Unfortnatly many folks seem content with their madness.

mredskins · 03-10-2010, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saden1

That could be cost effective for you but you got to figure out if that's true for you. Let's do some rough math to figure out whether it's worth it for taxpayers to pay for sending out these notification letters.

Given:
1. The government saves 85 million for every 1 percent of forms returned.
2. The current estimate of the number of households in the united states is 115 million which implies 115 million notification letters will initially be sent out (assuming since we really don't know if everyone was sent a notification letter).
3. The USPO bulk mail rate is $0.233 per mail (this number is conservative).

If you do the math it costs the government $26,795,000 (115 million * 0.233) to send these notification letters. At cost of ~27 million and the potential of saving 510 million to 1.02 billion sending these notifications is a no brainer even if you don't take into consideration printing cost. Hell, if sending these notification gets 0.5% more people to respond you should send them out!

Got mine yesterday the printing cost should be fairly low on these all the paper that was used was very low quality.

firstdown · 03-10-2010, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saden1

That could be cost effective for you but you got to figure out if that's true for you. Let's do some rough math to figure out whether it's worth it for taxpayers to pay for sending out these notification letters.

Given:
1. The government saves 85 million for every 1 percent of forms returned.
2. The current estimate of the number of households in the united states is 115 million which implies 115 million notification letters will initially be sent out (assuming since we really don't know if everyone was sent a notification letter).
3. The USPO bulk mail rate is $0.233 per mail (this number is conservative).

If you do the math it costs the government $26,795,000 (115 million * 0.233) to send these notification letters. At cost of ~27 million and the potential of saving 510 million to 1.02 billion sending these notifications is a no brainer even if you don't take into consideration printing cost. Hell, if sending these notification gets 0.5% more people to respond you should send them out!

Good post but your numbers are wrong. The article in your link talks about all their advertising saving us 85 million not this mailing. I'm guessing they have been taking some heat over this so they through together this letter and those numbers.

CRedskinsRule · 03-10-2010, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saden1

I don't believe you know me well enough to know that I would have hated it if Bush had done it.
There is no such thing as free advertising. I'm confidant you're aware of this.
You don't address the issue of cost effectiveness of the ad. You look at the 2.4 million price tag like a Neanderthal would and pound your chess while screaming "oga-buga" with glee and ignorance.

Check this out, yeah, according Nielson the SB had 105.97 million viewers. At 2.5 million price tag the cost of the ad per viewer is ~0.024 cents. Bang!

I actually don't have a problem with the double mailing, I understood the practicality of a notification letter before the census. I spoke of the SB commercial, because regardless of your statistics above, the government is already reaching out to houses via the mailing, the schools, and the market that is watching the SB will generally get counted. Maybe I am falling into a stereotyping trap, but if you are going to spend money for the census, you should focus the efforts on the areas and people who are likely to be uncounted, and those watching the SB don't fit into that. I could be 100% off base on this one, and I certainly feel that I have seen enough of your posts to have a basic understanding of how you quantify things, so I stand by my statement about Bush, you just would have blasted it on a different basis, maybe not doing enough to reach other areas, or some other equally statistically valid argument.

oohhooohh ahhhahhh eeeeheeeh

Mattyk · 03-10-2010, 03:29 PM

It worked in 2000, so why not now? I don't recall anyone crying about this back then.

Quote:

Because of the higher response rate the Census Bureau saved at least $305 million and returned that money to Congress following the census. The advertising campaign in the 2000 Census cost about $100 million, a $205 million return on investment.

Secretary of Commerce Don Evans testified before the Senate in 2001 and praised the Census Bureau for its outreach efforts. "The Bureau successfully implemented paid advertising for the first time in Census 2000, placing over $100 million in media buys designed to educate and motivate the public to respond," Secretary Evans said.

Monkeydad · 03-10-2010, 04:10 PM

Received my waste-of-money letter yesterday. So did my father-in-law, who immediate said "They sure know how to waste our money, don't they?"

03-09-2010, 04:34 PM	#32
tryfuhl Gamebreaker Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Waldorf, MD Age: 29 Posts: 12,512	Re: More Waisted Tax Money 2010 Census prelim mailings are done to increase sendback rate, it works it's also to open your eyes up to potential scams.. so if someone in a month comes by.. or you've already done something, etc

03-09-2010, 11:05 PM	#37
tryfuhl Gamebreaker Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Waldorf, MD Age: 29 Posts: 12,512	Re: More Waisted Tax Money 2010 Census Nice, actually kicked the numbers out. I love when people think that they're smarter based on opinion vs those who are actually paid to project these things.

03-10-2010, 04:10 PM	#45
Monkeydad Gamebreaker Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: PA Age: 33 Posts: 14,884	Re: More Waisted Tax Money 2010 Census Received my waste-of-money letter yesterday. So did my father-in-law, who immediate said "They sure know how to waste our money, don't they?" __________________ Not sent from a Droid, iPhone, Blackberry or toaster

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More Waisted Tax Money 2010 Census

Debating with the enemy