Via Andrew Gelman:
In 1984, according to the Social Security Administration, nearly 3.4 million Smiths lived in the United States. In 1990, the census counted 2.5 million. By 2000, the Smith population had declined to fewer than 2.4 million.Where did all the Smiths go from 1984 to 1990? I can believe it flatlined after 1990, but it's hard to believe that the count could have changed so much in 6 years.
Perhaps it's the difference between the SSA and Census methods of counting?
My theory is that after "Getting Away With It" was released in 1989, millions of people changed their name to avoid any possible association.
Perhaps the sharp drop is the result of the tail end of the baby boom starting to get married?
Although many women keep their own name nowadays, it's not the norm, and all those female Smiths getting married would change their names to something else.
If the remaining Smith families chose that very moment to have their birthrates crash, you could end up with a sharp reduction in the number of people named Smith very quickly.
Oops, sorry, my post is irrational. I forgot about all the women marrying to become Smiths.
OK, I have no explanation.
My first thought is all those Mr. and Mrs. Smith couples that turn out to be dueling assassins and kill one another.
Some sort of tax or social security fraud, maybe? The SSA data might also include dead people or people who emigrated from the US.
Since we don't have the 1980 census information to compare, it's possible that comparing the two separate data sources leads to misleading conclusions.
Perhaps many of the Smiths were elderly who died. Or female Smiths had a much higher marriage rate than male Smiths. Maybe a man surnamed Smith has a "boring" impression that makes him less attractive. Or perhaps there was a great "Smith Exodus" with the Smiths emigrating to other nations. America's resultant "Smith drain" could be a subject of study. Another possibility is a massive purging. Violent crime was quite high from 1984 to 1990, perhaps people named Smith were hit harder.
Or it's just a glitch.
I seem to recall a comment in Freakonomics about ten million Americans disappearing after the IRS started requiring SSNs to claim children as tax deductions. I think that was in the 80s, which fits within the two dates. And the marriage suggestion may also have some merit, if it doesn't count Hyphenated-Smith as a Smith.
Mind you, most of it is probably just a mismatch from separate data sources. The SSA hits more people than the Census, and is probably far worse at removing the dead from their rolls. But it's fun to speculate at other causes too.
I'd suspect problems in the SSA report process. The basic problem is: if you have a Smith record, is it a good record, a duplicate record, or a dead person? I think we could assume the Census is counting live bodies only once. But SSA has problems cleaning its data base, as is pointed out every time people propose to verify employees against it. So they have lots of unresolved duplicates for the same person, or for fake ID's. Plus, they might have records for people who have died (who never started getting SS or disability payments from SSA so it makes no difference to SSA).
In addition, if the original SSA report was a one-shot deal, it may well have been programmed without extensive validity testing.
The joke would have been funnier if the song hadn't been released by "Electronic," rather than Morrissey's other band.
True, but I kind of like Morrissey, whereas Electronic should have been unplugged.
What about the chidren who, in an earlier generation, would have been Smiths but are now Hyphenated-Smiths?
After a last-minute sitter cancellation, I drove down to the venue where Morrissey was playing last year, and attempted to sell my tickets to the resale brokers on the sidewalk for $20 (as opposed to the $100+ face value). No go. I then went to the neighborhood known for it's art galleries, gay bars, and cool eateries, located several blocks from the largest college campus in the U.S., and attempted to give the tickets away to anyone who said they would definitely use them that night. Mulitiple coffee shops and restaraunt patios later, no takers. I finally found a woman who said she would enjoy the show, but had to study. I left the tix with her in case she changed her mind.
We might like Morrissey, but your hypothesis deserves further investigation...
The two women I knew named Smith were thrilled to change their name ASAP when they got married.
Not to be overly pedantic, but Morrissey had no association with Electronic. It was Johnny Marr's band (with Bernard Sumner of New Order). I think the joke is on its last leg at this point.
Ack. Caffeine deficiency. I'd probably get Neil Tenant wrong as well if I had ever heard the name of the othe Pet Shop Boy.
No puzzle here. Hotel clerks no longer give a damn whether a man and a woman checking in together are married or not.
Just a thought, but wasn't 1984 around the time when you started having to list SSNs for children on tax returns? Also, this was the time that millions of American children vanished without a trace. Not sure if SSA or the Census uses tax return information, but that could have something to do with the drop if they did.
I once knew a man with a wooden leg named Smith... I can't remember the name of his other leg.
I once found 140 people using the same social security number.
Smith is a nice generic name ripe for identity fraud ...
My ears are bleeding, Megan. Why would you do this to me before noon?
Also, when did the technique of getting a birth certificate of a dead person, in order to establish a new identity, become popular? The old technique, of taking the most common name to get lost in a crowd, would tend to produce Smiths. If 900K warrant-, debt- and wife-dodgers suddenly realized they could upgrade their disguise, that would explain it!
I married a Smith during the study period (1988) just as my Grandfather did back in the 1920s. Two down.
A yawning gap is opening up between the Smiths and the non-Smiths. Why aren't any Presidential candidates concerned about this crisis? Surely we need a federal program, even at the cabinet level, to boost the self-esteem of the endangered Smith clan? But then you mean-spirited libertarians probably don't give a damn do you?
This seems obvious, but did the 1980 Census publish any results regarding the number of Smiths in that year? That would go a long way towards explaining the discrepancy.
Guess we're reproducing less than previous Smiths, or as some have mentioned, we are having more women offspring, that, although they might keep the surname Smith, their offspring typically take the father's name. But I do like creech's idea of a federal program for us Smith's.
A lot of dead Smiths are collecting SS.
Either that, or there is a giant, hidden army of Smiths bent on world conquest. Where is Neo when you need him?
As manufacturing jobs move over seas we need fewer "smiths"! Get it!?!? Hahaha...
Seven of my uncle Jack Smith's girls are now married, so I know where 7 went. The rest of you slackers need to start looking.
There are three simple explanations for this non-puzzle:
1. the Census picks up all the illegal aliens who call themselves Smith, but that practice is declining with laxer enforcement.
2. The rate of homelessness among Smiths has been increasing very rapidly.
3. There are about two million new Psmiths out there (the P is silent, you know).
Any chance they changed their names to Smythe in order to appear sophisticated?