So far, the Census Bureau has stiffed the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating the bureau’s fabrication of the nation’s unemployment data.
But the Commerce Department, which is in charge of Census, has assured Congressional investigators that they will eventually get the information and interviews they are requesting.
The Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), looks into government wrongdoing. It had asked in a Nov. 19 letter that Census provide by Dec. 3 documents related to the case of Julius Buckmon, the former Census enumerator accused in 2011 of faking interviews with households.
The Post broke the news about Buckmon a couple of weeks ago, and the Oversight Committee immediately began its probe.
A Senate committee is also believed to be looking into the matter.
In 2010, Buckmon was caught faking interviews that go into the nation’s monthly unemployment survey. He also fabricated surveys of Americans’ spending habits that contribute to the monthly consumer price index.
In surveys like those conducted by Census, every interview represents about 5,000 households. Buckmon is believed to have conducted four times the average number of enumerator interviews.
Buckmon — and a source that I haven’t identified — said the order to fabricate information came from higher-ups. And the unidentified source said others were also doing what Buckmon was accused of.
Census said at the time of my disclosure that the Buckmon case was an isolated incident.
The bureau never made the incident public, never disciplined the supervisor(s), didn’t alert the Labor Department that some of its data might have been fabricated and did not conduct a wider investigation of the abuse until The Post’s disclosure.
The Oversight Committee is not only looking into what Buckmon did in 2010 but also into allegations that the deception continued for years and that employees in the Philadelphia region of the Census — where Buckmon was assigned — manipulated the unemployment rate around the time of the last presidential election.
The jobless rate recorded a historic decline in the months preceding President Obama’s re-election.
According to an Oversight Committee source, who doesn’t want to be identified, “the Census Bureau has not yet complied with the Committee’s request, but [Commerce] confirmed that it will produce documents and make requested witnesses available for transcribed interviews.”
The committee has asked to interview seven Census workers connected to the Philadelphia region, including Buckmon. Some of the others are the people being accused by Buckmon of ordering the action, while others helped cover it up.
But some of the people on the list claim to know what was really going on in the Philadelphia office, which was coming up short of the required number of interviews required by Labor — and were falsifying surveys to make up the shortfall.
According to my committee source, shortly after Buckmon was fired in 2010, “the allegations were brought forward by Buckmon and another employee that supervisors were instructing enumerators to fabricate data.”
The Census Bureau’s Inspector General investigated. “The IG’s inquiry at the time did not go beyond the informal stage, and no public report was issued,” said my committee source. “Now with new allegations, the [Census] IG is looking into the Philadelphia office again, especially in light of other reports of management issues in that office.”
“The fact that the IG did not follow through on its investigation in 2010 is one of the primary reasons the committee is conducting its own investigation now,” said my committee source.
Census, in a statement, said, “When we first learned of the allegations we immediately notified [ Commerce’s] Office of Inspector General [OIG]. The matter is now with the OIG. You will need to contact that office for more information.”