It's just your regular 10 year census. We call it the 'long form' here, and apparently you used to do so as well. Over the past 50 years or so, a portion of households get the long form, while everyone gets the short form. Seems it has been mandatory, whichever government has been in power, for some time now. But you can still call it Obama's fault if you like.

I looked it up: the long form, under whatever name, has been around since 1940 in the US.

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