Quote:
Originally posted by DSTCHAOS
Of course the census data does not suggest social implications. That's why there are people like myself who understand and research the social implications.  The Census is not a research tool in the sense of hypotheses and using theoretical foundations for their work. They are only a clearing house and a data collection unit. Similar to other research institutes that just collect the data and crunch the numbers.
There are a lot of people who have "comfort items," but there are MANY more who are struggling to just make ends meet. This is moreso for families with children because children make up over half of the people in poverty and near-poverty. So, if you thought "comfort items" meant not going to bed hungry or being able to afford nutritional meals, I would agree with you.
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I know that census data is just a data collection unit. And after the data is collected, it is an invaluable tool to have some series of sociological hypotheses tested just based on the numbers with the appropriate stats.
However, in 2000, the Census Bureau did make a concerted effort to "outreach" to communities of color for data collection so that the "needs and resources" are allocated to municipal/localities, state and federal budgets... That was the primary dictate made by the Census 2000 committee upon presentation of the application to various audiences at national conventions...
But "Census 2000" did allow folks to "pre-select" there "racial/ethnic" categories into several, which does skew data interpretation... i.e. if folks select more than one ethnic identifier, then by basic number crunching alone, does that variable get counted one time or more? Even if you do multivariate ANOVA, you still get data skewing...