The Census Bureau will employ "embarrassment" and "guilt" to prod state and local governments to encourage people to participate in next year's head count, agency officials say.

• The bureau's goal is to increase by 5 percent the number of returned census questionnaires received in 1990 and to halt a steady decline in the number of persons participating by mail.

• One tactic will be to remind officials in the 39,000 government jurisdictions about the percentage of persons in their areas who were not counted 10 years ago -- and to keep them constantly informed of the proportion of questionnaires being returned during the period March 27 through April 12, 2000.

• The problems that beset the 1990 census -- when returns dropped 10 percent from 1980 -- have worsened since then, including more single parents, more people living on houseboats, more people living in garages, basements and boxes, and more junk mail piling up.

• Four million people didn't return their forms 1990 and four million others reported twice, officials say.

The bureau is estimating that just 61 percent of the populace will take part in the census by returning mailed questionnaires. Those not returning the forms can expect personal follow-up visits by census takers.

For the first time, the agency is hiring non-citizens to call upon aliens -- figuring they will cooperate more readily with other foreigners.

Source: August Gribbin, "Governments to be Badgered for Census Returns," Washington Times, November 23, 1999.