The 2020 census may have undercounted the U.S. population by more than 1.6 million people, drastically affecting the distribution of federal funding across the country, according to new research from the Urban Institute.
The census, researchers noted, is always an imperfect and inexact process that undercounts certain populations, particularly minorities. Their goal, then, was not to determine “whether accuracy was achieved, but its utility for specific purposes such as apportionment and allocation of federal resources,” according to the report.
2020 Census May Have Missed More Than 1.6M Residents – Nextgov