More Waisted Tax Money 2010 Census

[tryfuhl]

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]

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!

[MTK]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[dmek25]

Originally Posted by firstdown

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.

its funny how when you disagree with something, the numbers are always wrong. how about backing up your claim with some facts?

[tryfuhl]

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.

[MTK]

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

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.

[tryfuhl]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

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

bada boom

[dmek25]

i was talking to FD Saden

[saden1]

Originally Posted by dmek25

i was talking to FD Saden

My post was in support of your post.

[MTK]

The mailing is likely included in the advertising figure, either way at this point we're talking semantics

[over the mountain]

thats interesting saden, thanks for the information. what didnt make sense to me now does.

[Longtimefan]

Originally Posted by firstdown

So I'm looking through the mail last night and I see that I have my 2010 census in the mail so I open it up. What I find is a letter telling me that they will be mailing my census form in about 10 days. Why in the he!! are they mailing me this instead of just mailing out the census form? Is the goverment really that stupid that they think its smart to pre-mail every house hold to let them know their census is coming? What a waist of tax dollars from a goverment that is out of money. They just don't get the problem and never will. Now that I think about it maybe its a stimulas for the Post Office sense they are going broke.

Waste of tax payer dollars!! Let me count the ways.