• Hiring for the decennial US Census will give a temporary boost to employment and distort monthly payroll data
  • Unfortunately, the boost to disposable income and hence consumption is minor
  • Nevertheless, a continued underlying improvement in employment should keep private consumption growth positive through 2010

The 2010 Census is drawing closer

The US labour market will receive a temporary boost this spring when the US Census Bureau hires more than 1 million temporary workers for its 2010 census headcount. Every 10 years, US Census counts all residents in the United States as required by the US Constitution. One key use of the collected information is to determine the number of seats in the House of Representatives allocated to each state. The results will be used in the 2012 presidential elections.

The National Census date, which is the deadline for sending in the questionnaire, is the 1 April 2010 but the Census Bureau will start hiring workers before that. With a total of around 1.2 million temporary employees the Census could give a lift to the real economy. We assess how large that boost really is.