美国国家公共电台 NPR The Census Bureau Needs To Hire Half A Million Workers For The 2020 Count

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The partial government shutdown is over, so hundreds of thousands of federal workers are heading back to work today. But all throughout the shutdown, one government agency was actually in the midst of a massive recruiting effort. The Census¹ Bureau is busy trying to hire a half million workers for the 2020 census. NPR's Hansi Lo Wang reports.

HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE²: The national headcount of every person living in the U.S. officially kicks off less than a year from now. More than 90,000 have applied³ to help carry out the census, including at the Bronx Library Center in New York City.

JESSICA RODRIGUEZ: So right now we're on census.gov. And if we scroll⁴ down to the...

WANG: Career coach Jessica Rodriguez shows me the website that for months she's helped job seekers navigate⁵. Many of the openings are for outreach specialists who work with local community groups and supervisor⁶ positions, like the one Pamela Hudson is applying for.

PAMELA HUDSON: I'm thinking about transitioning into this job because it's very important to me because we have children that need education. We have children that need health care.

WANG: Hudson says she wants to do her part to make sure communities get their fair share of the hundreds of billions of tax dollars distributed based on census numbers. The partial government shutdown, though, did give her pause about working for the Census Bureau.

HUDSON: When I went on the website, I noticed it said lack of funding. So does that mean that at certain period that the census workers may not get any pay? I'm concerned about that.

WANG: Funding carried over from last year has kept preparations for the 2020 census going. In case there's another shutdown in the coming weeks, the Bureau has said it has enough money to work on the census into April. Whatever happens, though, Tayesha Hudson - no relation to Pamela - says she's not worried.

TAYESHA HUDSON: I know eventually the government is going to have to get it together. And I know that they're going to want this 2020 census to go forward.

WANG: Tayesha Hudson's interested in helping⁷ with door knocking and collecting information from people who don't fill out their census forms themselves. Fewer than 7 in 10 households plan to take part in the count, according to a new Census Bureau report. Hudson says she expects to do a lot of persuading if she's hired for the job.

HUDSON: It's about making sure that we get the things that we need in our community, that everybody is counted regardless of their race, regardless of whether or not they're a citizen. We're all in this life just trying to make sure that we can go day by day. So we all should be counted.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

AL FONTENOT: The one thing that keeps me up at night is the one thing I have less control over, and that's our ability to recruit and hire.

WANG: That was Census Bureau official Al Fontenot speaking at a public meeting last year. He's been worried about filling a half million jobs for the census. As of last week, the bureau has hired a tiny fraction of that number. A low unemployment rate could result in an applicant⁸ pool smaller than the bureau would like.

Elzie Wright is a program coordinator⁹ for a community group based in Brooklyn. And she says there's another challenge. The Trump¹⁰ administration wants to include on the 2020 census the question, is this person a citizen of the United States? A federal judge in New York has ordered the removal of the question. The administration wants the Supreme¹¹ Court to let the question stay. Wright says, if it does, many census workers will have a harder job.

ELZIE WRIGHT: They know that they probably (laughter) won't get too many answers or too many participants, especially now in this environment.

WANG: Wright has worked on outreach to the Haitian community in Brooklyn.

WRIGHT: Let's face it. There's a lot of undocumented people in the community. And that makes them suspicious, you know, to talk to anybody.

WANG: The Census Bureau is expecting fewer households to respond to the census if there is a citizenship¹² question. That could mean the bureau might have to hire more workers in an already tight labor¹³ market. Hansi Lo Wang, NPR News, New York.

(SOUNDBITE OF BERRY WEIGHT'S "YETI'S LAMENT")

1 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

4 scroll   

n.卷轴，纸卷；(石刻上的)漩涡

参考例句：

• As I opened the scroll,a panorama of the Yellow River unfolded.我打开卷轴时，黄河的景象展现在眼前。
• He was presented with a scroll commemorating his achievements.他被授予一幅卷轴，以表彰其所做出的成就。

5 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

6 supervisor   

n.监督人，管理人，检查员，督学，主管，导师

参考例句：

• Between you and me I think that new supervisor is a twit.我们私下说，我认为新来的主管人是一个傻瓜。
• He said I was too flighty to be a good supervisor.他说我太轻浮不能成为一名好的管理员。

7 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

8 applicant   

n.申请人，求职者，请求者

参考例句：

• He was the hundredth applicant for the job. 他是第100个申请这项工作的人。
• In my estimation, the applicant is well qualified for this job. 据我看, 这位应征者完全具备这项工作的条件。

9 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

10 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

11 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

12 citizenship   

n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份)

参考例句：

• He was born in Sweden,but he doesn't have Swedish citizenship.他在瑞典出生，但没有瑞典公民身分。
• Ten years later,she chose to take Australian citizenship.十年后，她选择了澳大利亚国籍。

13 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。