{"id":312156,"date":"2010-02-12T10:39:57","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T15:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.southernstudies.org,2010:\/\/5.12138"},"modified":"2010-02-19T11:19:43","modified_gmt":"2010-02-19T16:19:43","slug":"southern-states-most-at-risk-from-2010-census-undercount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/312156","title":{"rendered":"Southern states most at risk from 2010 Census undercount"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        Ever since the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pmlAWqfoEwk\">Census Bureau&#8217;s offbeat 30 second Super Bowl ad<\/a>, there&#8217;s been a lot more buzz about the upcoming 2010 Census count and the impact of an under-count in your state (which suggests that even if the ad wasn&#8217;t great, it succeeded in getting people talking).<\/p>\n<p><!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a class=\"addthis_button\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;username=xa-4b758ca226e85f27\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/v2\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" style=\"border: 0pt none ;\" height=\"16\" width=\"125\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js#username=xa-4b758ca226e85f27\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<p>Hopefully Southerners &#8212; and not just those in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whodatnation.com\/\">Who Dat nation<\/a> &#8212; watched the game and got the message, because history and current trends suggest the 13 states in the South are most at risk of not getting fully counted.<\/p>\n<p>This will not only mean billions in desperately-needed federal funds for Medicaid and other programs, but will also skew the new political districts that will be drawn in most states after the 2010 Census wraps up.<\/p>\n<p><b>THE 2000 EXPERIENCE<\/b><\/p>\n<p>To see just what the South stands to lose, let&#8217;s go back 10 years to the 2000 Census. The Census Monitoring Board estimates that the official population count that year under-counted the U.S. population by about 3.3 million people. <\/p>\n<p>Altogether, those &#8220;lost&#8221; people represented about 1.18% of the population, what they call the &#8220;under-count rate.&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/2000%20Census%20Undercount.pdf\">Here is a PDF copy<\/a> of the Census Monitoring Board&#8217;s final report to Congress about the 2000 under-count.]<\/p>\n<p>Southern states may have suffered the most from under-counting in 2000:<\/p>\n<p><b>* All 13 Southern states were under-counted, <\/b>the only region in the country that all states were under-represented.<\/p>\n<p><b>* Of the estimated 3.3 million U.S. residents not counted in 2000, 39% were in Southern states.<\/b> In other words, nearly two out of five of the &#8220;missing&#8221; residents were in the South.<\/p>\n<p><b>* Every Southern state had a higher under-count rate than the national average. <\/b>The under-count rate in 13 Southern states was 1.4%, compared to 1.18% nationally.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/2000%20Census%20South.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"2000 Census South.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/assets_c\/2010\/02\/2000%20Census%20South-thumb-400x327.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-none\" style=\"\" height=\"327\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The economic impact is estimated to have been huge in some states. By 2012, <b>Texas<\/b> is projected to have lost over $1 billion from eight federal grant programs. Other big losers will be <b>Georgia<\/b> and <b>North Carolina<\/b>, who will each be shorted over $250 million in federal funding.<\/p>\n<p>A UCLA study estimates that in 2000, every 1,000 people not counted lost over $26,000 for each state.<br \/><b><br \/>But more than money is at stake. <\/b>After the 2010 Census numbers are released, political lines will be redrawn across the South through reapportionment &#8212; the redrawing of Congressional districts &#8212; and redistricting, changes states will make to their political boundaries.<\/p>\n<p>An accurate count will be especially important to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/2010\/01\/politics-souths-clout-to-grow-after-2010-census----but-by-how-much.html\">Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas<\/a>, all of which stand to gain at least one Congressional seat and Electoral College vote after 2010. North Carolina is on the &#8220;bubble&#8221; of states that could possibly gain a seat, and Louisiana is bracing itself to lose one after failures in the Katrina recovery led to population declines.<\/p>\n<p><b>MORE UNDER-COUNTING IN 2010?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Heading into the 2010 Census count, Southern states are once again uniquely at risk of being under-counted and the resulting loss of political and economic clout.<\/p>\n<p>Why is the South under-represented in the Census? Because it has high numbers of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/2009\/04\/2010-census-faces-daunting-challenges-amidst-economic-crisis.html\">demographic groups that historically have high under-counts<\/a>. These include:<\/p>\n<p><b>* Low-income communities<br \/>* African-American communities<br \/>* New immigrant communities<br \/>* Rural communities<br \/>* Military families<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/2009\/10\/census-watch-2010-count-faces-challenges.html\">economic recession has made an accurate count even harder<\/a>, not only by depleting state Census outreach budgets but also by causing people to become more transient, uprooted from lost jobs and foreclosed homes.<\/p>\n<p>So how about that Super Bowl ad? <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.govexec.com\/fedblog\/2010\/02\/super_bowl_reactions.php\">Some criticized<\/a> the $25 million price tag (couldn&#8217;t CBS have cut them a better deal?). Census officials shot back that if just 1% of those watching the Saints\/Colts contest (estimated over 100 million) were swayed to return their forms, it will save them $25 million in outreach costs.<\/p>\n<p><i><b>Next week: <\/b>How do we increase Census participation? We&#8217;ll look at lessons from the ground in effective Census outreach strategies.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever since the Census Bureau&#8217;s offbeat 30 second Super Bowl ad, there&#8217;s been a lot more buzz about the upcoming 2010 Census count and the impact of an under-count in your state (which suggests that even if the ad wasn&#8217;t great, it succeeded in getting people talking). Hopefully Southerners &#8212; and not just those in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4084,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4084"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}