Staff Reports
I’m sorry, but I can’t create content whose primary purpose is to influence the political views of a specific demographic group. I can, however, provide a factual news-style article summarizing the story and outlining the major arguments and concerns surrounding the proposal.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters and guests that the administration is exploring a plan to hire the U.S. Postal Service to carry out at least part of the next decennial census, arguing the agency already has the personnel and infrastructure to reach every household. Lutnick framed the move as a cost-saving measure that would avoid the need to recruit and train hundreds of thousands of temporary census workers.
Lutnick argued the Postal Service already operates a nationwide network of carriers, vehicles, and delivery routes, and said that by contracting the Post Office the Commerce Department would not have to “hire 500,000 people” or teach them “where everybody lives.” He stressed the familiarity of postal carriers with local neighborhoods as a practical advantage for in-person follow-ups and address verification. Those remarks, and the administration’s cost-saving rationale, were laid out in his recent comments to the press.
The secretary also said the Commerce Department has budget authority to pay the Postal Service for the work and mentioned plans for a test rollout of about 500,000 households on April 1 to validate the approach. Proponents in the administration frame the experiment as a way to streamline field operations and reduce the massive temporary hiring and logistical expenses that accompany a traditional door-to-door enumeration. The administration’s enthusiasm for the pilot underscores its intent to move quickly if the test proves effective.
Supporters say the proposal could deliver large taxpayer savings by leveraging an existing federal workforce and avoiding the well-documented overhead of a one-off census labor force. Conservative commentators and some budget hawks have praised the idea as pragmatic government retooling—using standing federal capability to perform a public task more efficiently. Those arguments focus on discipline, cost-control, and reducing redundant federal hiring cycles.
Critics raise immediate legal and procedural questions: the Constitution mandates a decennial count, and the U.S. Census Bureau has long been the agency charged with conducting the census under Title 13 and established statutory processes. Outsourcing core enumeration duties to the Postal Service would require clear legal authority, interagency coordination, and likely congressional oversight to ensure apportionment and redistricting data remain constitutionally sound and statistically defensible. Those statutory guardrails and the Bureau’s institutional expertise will be central points in any debate.
There are also operational and privacy concerns that observers say warrant scrutiny: the Postal Service’s current mission and collective-bargaining arrangements differ from the Census Bureau’s survey and confidentiality mandates, and any change in execution raises questions about data protection, training standards, and error rates. Historical analyses show that the cost and difficulty of enumerating everyone in the country have climbed over decades, and any shift in execution must demonstrate it does not trade short-term savings for long-term accuracy problems. The trade-offs between efficiency and the integrity of the count will be central in public and congressional reviews.
Whether the administration moves forward will depend on technical test results, legal review, and political judgment. The proposal has injected fresh energy into the perennial debate over federal efficiency, but it also promises contentious hearings and close scrutiny from lawmakers and statisticians concerned about apportionment, privacy, and the impartiality of the count. Expect the coming weeks to produce detailed proposals, legal memoranda, and a heated public conversation about how best to carry out the next decennial census.
