The US Census now has an API

The US Census now has an API
census.gov

Hmmm... looking at the example of this I can't help but think there has got to be a better way. This is more just a standard CSV (first row is header, all other rows are data). Using JSON for data formatted as such is kind of a waste of JSON. If you pass that example into a JSON decoder you get an extremely more difficult to use object. Am I missing something? or is this just typical "the government doesn't do tech properly" stuff?

EDIT: sorry, I try to be less negative but sometimes it is hard. I do applaud them for at least making the info available. I don't have a use for it but if some else does then dealing with a stupid format is better than not having data at all.

EDIT2: (to clarify) I was not saying the data should just be CSV... I'm saying it is and that defeats the purpose of using JSON. They should still use JSON but with their data formatted differently. Using their example, properly closed but truncated to just to first 2 records, the PHP function json_decode() turns it into this array:

  array (
    0 => array (
      0 => 'P0010001',
      1 => 'NAME',
      2 => 'state',
    ),
    1 => array (
      0 => '710231',
      1 => 'Alaska',
      2 => '02',
    ),
    2 => array (
      0 => '4779736',
      1 => 'Alabama',
      2 => '01',
    ),
  )

1. CSV is not a single well-defined format. Some people use rfc4180, but not everybody does.

2. JSON is easier to parse than CSV for JavaScript clients, i.e., browsers. On the other hand, JSON is not a subset of JavaScript.