By Mike Schneider
Associated Press
The 2020 Census missed a percentage of the US population that was supposed to count, according to a report released Thursday.
These errors mainly affected Hispanics, blacks and indigenous people,
and to a greater extent than what happened in 2010.
The number of people not counted by the Census was much higher for these minority groups, with Asians being an exception, the Census Bureau said in a report that measured how well the once-a-decade count tracked US residents, and whether certain populations were underrepresented or overrepresented (for example, if someone has a vacation home and is counted there as well as at home).
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Undercounted were 3.3% of the black population, nearly 5% of Latinos, and 5.6% of American Indians and Alaska Natives.
The non-Hispanic white population was overcounted by 1.6%, and Asians were also overcounted by 2.6%, according to reports.
Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, blamed the errors on political interference by former President Donald Trump, who unsuccessfully tried to add a citizenship question to the census form and curtailed field operations.
The error will affect the distribution of federal funds and political representationCARLO ALLEGRI / REUTERS
"These numbers are devastating. Once again, we see an overcount of white Americans and an undercount of blacks and Hispanics," Morial said on a call with reporters.
"I want to express in the strongest terms my outrage," he said.
The 2020 Census missed 0.24% of the entire US population, a rate that was not statistically significant, while the 2010 Census missed 0.01%.
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Census figures help determine the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending each year, as well as the number of House seats each state wins.
An undercount may reduce funding and political representation for the next decade.
In the years leading up to the 2020 census, advocates worried about a failed attempt by the Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the questionnaire, fearing it would discourage Hispanics and migrants from participating, whether they were in the country or not. legally as if not.
The Trump Administration also unsuccessfully tried to get the Census Bureau to exclude people in the country illegally from the numbers used to apportion congressional seats among states and shortened the schedule of field operations that had been expanded due to the pandemic.
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During a conference call Thursday, Census Bureau Director Robert Santos said many Latino communities across the United States suffered from unemployment and housing insecurity during the pandemic, and that played a role in the undercount.
But he added that the Trump administration's actions may also have had an impact.
"Personally I am not surprised to see the results we see today," said Santos, who was sworn in earlier this year with the arrival of Joe Biden to the White House.
Arturo Vargas, director of the NALEO Educational Fund, said he had never seen such a large underreporting of the Hispanic population during 35 years of his census tracking.
"As you can imagine, we feel terrible - I can't find the word right now - we are upset about the magnitude of the Latino underreporting," Vargas said on the conference call.
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About 70% of Native Americans live on reservations.
James Tucker, chairman of an advisory committee to the Census Bureau, estimated that the undercount translates to at least 100,000 of this uncounted population and a loss of more than $300 million in federal funding to the community.
“The considerable resources and efforts that national and local organizers and tribes put into getting a complete count in Indian Country made all the difference,” he said.