By Allison Plyer and Cara Brumfield
Standard Deviations blog posts represent the views of the author(s)/organization(s), but not necessarily those of The Census Project.
Congratulations are in order for the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates team. When pandemic disruptions delayed data from the 2020 Census, they innovated new methods for creating annual population estimates that increased the accuracy of these data used as controls and denominators for a host of economic, health, and social statistics.
With the backing of Congress and the President, the Census Bureau is poised to take even greater strides toward enhancing the accuracy of population estimates. Why is this cause for celebration? Because behind the numbers lies the distribution of over $2 trillion in federal funding each year.
In the federal budget just approved for the current year, both houses of Congress and the Biden Administration recognized this success and directed the Census Bureau to build on progress by investing in further improvement and modernization of the annual estimates. These adjustments to population estimates might seem like a technicality to some, but their impact is profound and far-reaching.
The Census Bureau’s own studies showed undercounts in decennial data on rural residents, people of color, young children, and renters, and these new investments will enable the Estimates team and its Base Evaluation and Review Team to use additional data to improve the annual updates. One official review, the Post-Enumeration Survey, found that one in 20 residents of Arkansas and Tennessee were missed, as well as people in six other Gulf Coast and Mississippi Valley states. If those residents are in official records such as school enrollment, birth certificates, or program participation, they can be added back for more accurate annual population estimates.
But why are adjustments necessary in the first place? The answer lies in the complexity of counting every individual in a country as vast and diverse as the United States. The decennial census provides a snapshot of the population at a particular point in time, but it has never been infallible. The Constitution requires that the results of the decennial census, an “actual enumeration” be used for determining the seats in Congress each state receives, but the annual population estimates, used for distributing federal funding, can be adjusted for the known undercounts. Following the widely publicized challenges in 2020, many voices including the Wall Street Journal editorial board called for the Census Bureau to do just that.
The GAO stated this week that experts at the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine approve of the estimates modernization, and “that the new methodology would likely improve estimates for historically undercounted populations, such as young children.”
Without adjustments in the annual estimates, communities that are underrepresented in the census receive less than their fair share of federal funds, exacerbating disparities and perpetuating inequity. This is where the Census Bureau’s expertise and innovation come into play. Through rigorous analysis and modeling, they refine the decennial census data to more accurately reflect the true population in 2020. Then each year they produce updated estimates that reflect births, deaths and migration patterns to provide an updated picture of who resides where and what their needs are.
The importance of these adjustments cannot be overstated. Consider education, healthcare, transportation, housing, and social services—just a few areas where federal funds are crucial for supporting communities and improving quality of life. By investing in the accuracy of population estimates, Congress and the President are investing in the future of our nation. They are affirming a commitment to fairness, justice, and opportunity for all. They are recognizing that every person counts and deserves their fair share.
As we celebrate the Population Estimates team’s progress and the support it has received, let us not minimize the work ahead. We are confident that the data exist to allow mitigation of the pandemic undercounts of rural communities, renters, children, and people of color. But doing so accurately will require hard work and continued innovation by the professional staff of the Census Bureau.
– Dr. Allison Plyer and Cara Brumfield, co-chairs of the Census Quality Reinforcement Task Force, are respectively chief demographer of the Data Center in southeast Louisiana and director of income and work supports at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).