April 22, 2009 PRESIDENT ANNOUNCES NOMINATION FOR COMMERCE POST OVERSEEING CENSUS President Obama announced his intent to nominate Dr. Rebecca M. Blank, a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors in the Clinton Administration, to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs. The Under Secretary oversees the Commerce Department’s Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA), which houses the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The post requires Senate confirmation; the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will hold the confirmation hearing. Dr. Blank currently is the Robert S. Kerr Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Prior to that appointment last summer, Dr. Blank was Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and co-director of the National Poverty Center. She previously taught economics at Princeton, Northwestern, and Michigan. According to a White House statement, Dr. Blank’s research has “focused on the interactions between the macroeconomy, government policy, and the behavior and well-being of American families.” Her work at Brookings has focused on expanding research on education, labor markets, and changing demography to inform public policy. She is the author of several books, including It Takes A Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty (1997), which won the Richard A. Lester Prize for the Outstanding Book in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations. Dr. Blank holds a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Minnesota. Support for Groves nomination: As the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs prepares for a confirmation hearing to consider the nomination of Dr. Robert Groves to be the next Census Director, a number of stakeholders have expressed their support for the candidate to committee leaders. In a letter to Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) urging quick committee action on the nomination, six former directors of the U.S. Census Bureau, who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, described Dr. Groves as “one of the half dozen most highly regarded survey research methodologists not only in the United States but in the world.” (The full letter is available on The Census Project web site at http://www.thecensusproject.org/CP-Groves-Lieberman-April09.pdf.) Stakeholder organizations participating in The Census Project also sent a letter of support for the nominee. Signers include the U.S. Conference of Mayors, American Planning Association, Organization of Chinese Americans, Consortium of Social Science Associations, and Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. (Go to http://www.thecensusproject.org/CP-Groves-Carper-April09.pdf for a copy of the full letter.) The committee has not yet posted a date for the confirmation hearing. New information on “hard to count” areas available for stakeholders: The Census Project has posted several new tables on its web site (www.thecensusproject.org, Fact Sheets) showing the number and percent of people living in so-called “hard-to-count” areas by State, as well as the 50 counties with the largest number of people living in hard-to-count areas and the highest percent of their populations in these areas. The new Fact Sheets explain how the Census Bureau defines hard-to-count areas; the analyses are based on 2000 census data from the Census Bureau’s 2010 Census Planning Database, which the agency is using to target outreach, promotion, and other resources in communities that are at greater risk of an undercount. Editor’s note: The April 2, 2009 (Issue #2) Census News Brief said that, “the 1990 census was not adjusted for congressional apportionment and redistricting and the allocation of federal program funds.” The sentence should have read, “… the Census Bureau did not adjust the 1990 census for congressional apportionment and redistricting and allocation of federal program funds.” During the 1990s, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) decided to use adjusted 1990 population counts to calibrate the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly survey conducted by the Census Bureau for BLS. The CPS is the primary source of government information on labor force characteristics, producing estimates of employment, unemployment, earnings, and other key indicators – some through frequent supplemental questions -- that might be used in formulas to allocate federal funds. Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, an independent legislative and policy consultant working with a wide range of census stakeholders to promote an accurate 2010 census. All views expressed in the News Briefs are solely those of the author. Please direct questions about the information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at TerriAnn2K(a)aol.com. Please feel free to circulate this document to other interested individuals and organizations and to reprint any or all of the information. Previous Census News Briefs are posted on the Census Project web site, at www.thecensusproject.org. -- Ed Christopher 708-283-3534 (V) 708-574-8131 (cell) FHWA RC-TST-PLN 19900 Governors Dr Olympia Fields, IL 60461