United States Census, 2010

The Twenty-third United States Census will be the next national census in the United States. The census has been conducted every 10 years, as required by the United States Constitution, with the previous one completed in 2000.

Cost
The Government Accountability Office estimated in 2004 that the cost of the census could climb to over $11 billion. In a detailed report to Congress, it called on the Census Bureau to address cost and design issues.

Lockheed Martin -- partnering with IBM, Computer Sciences Corporation, , and others -- won a six-year, $500M contract to capture and standardize 2010 census data. The contract includes systems, facilities and staffing to for about a quarter of the projected $11.3B cost of the decennial census. Data collection efficiency and processing are priorities in 2010. This will be the first census to use hand-held computing devices with GPS capability.

The project will also employ approximately one million part-time employees.