Reconstructing the adjusted census for florida: a case study in data examination

This article is a case study in the value of close examination of available data when one is attempting to make inferences. The article is also an example of what can be done to reconstruct government files when data have been concealed, whether for administrative or political reasons, as here, or to preserve confidentiality. The various methods currently used are under review by a panel under the aegis of the Committee on National Statistics of the National Research Council. The upshot of our work is that even suppressing half of the microlevel data in a file need not daunt a determined and reasonably adroit reconstructor equipped with modern computers. The particular problem discussed here arose due to a bizarre set of political and legal circumstances, explained in Section 1, whereby the U.S. Department of Commerce released a tape consisting of the adjusted population (cross-classified by age, race, and gender) of half the Census Blocks in the nation, together with certain summary adjusted information. This article concerns techniques used to fill in the other half of the adjusted block data for possible use in reapportionment.