The Constitution mandates that the Executive Branch tally “the whole number of persons in each state.” But at a time when corporations are considered people, the integrity of the census, and ultimately the allocation of billions of dollars of resources, is at stake.
Put plainly, the census results dictate how government representation is structured, how resources are distributed, and who gets counted. Ultimately, the results of the decennial survey will determine how $675 billion in federal funding is allocated to states and localities each year for programs such as natural disaster preparation, public housing, assessing school district needs, homeland security, highway and mass transit resources, health care, and emergency room services. Data from the census is also used to determine how many congressional seats and electoral votes each state receives, and how states will redraw local and federal voting districts. The census does not exist as an abstract academic question; it is about processing real data to facilitate decision making. The results of the census stand to affect communities, cities, states, and our environment across the country.
But the upcoming 2020 Census stands apart from this tradition for both what it will include and exclude and whether it will have enough funding to adequately reach all people in this country.
Recently, the Trump administration announced that the 2020 Census will include a question about U.S. citizenship for the first time since 1950. The addition of this question will likely have the effect of discouraging immigrants and their families from participating. This could lead to potential undercount of millions of people in this country. The census has existed for over 60 years without this question. Why add it now? To date, dozens of lawsuits have been filed to remove the citizenship question from the census.
Additionally, despite its appearance in an early version of the census, questions regarding sexual orientation and gender identity were quickly withdrawn and dismissed as mistakes. Community leaders who had been organizing for the inclusion of these questions in the nation’s recordkeeping were disappointed, if not surprised.
In a statement after the withdrawal of the sexual orientation and gender identity questions, Meghan Maury, Criminal and Economic Justice Project Director at the National LGBTQ Task Force, asked, "If the government doesn’t know how many LGBTQ people live in a community, how can it do its job to ensure we’re getting fair and adequate access to the rights, protections, and services we need?"
And while we’re still nearly two years away from the 2020 Census, it cannot be overstated how major these changes would be and what impact they would have on every single person living in the United States. These biased tactics and inaccurate reporting of U.S. residents could lead to massive undercount and shift economic and political power away from the communities most in need and deny them federal resources and accurate representation in government.
On top of that, the Census Bureau, which oversees the execution of the census, is already facing critical funding issues. Counting 330 million people in a geographical and culturally diverse country is not an easy task. Yet in 2012, Congress reduced the Bureau’s funding for the 2020 Census despite projected increases in population. When Trump took office, more cuts were proposed to the Bureau, and as a result, there are 200,000 fewer people working to take the census than in 2010, spreading the remaining staff too thin to reach all participants. Already, the Bureau has had to cancel field tests designed to evaluate its ability to reach hard-to-count communities. There is already mass confusion and fear of what the Trump Administration will do with information collected in the census, and without additional funding, this could lead to less people being counted in the process.
Additionally, the percentage of white U.S. residents is expected to fall below 60 percent for the first time in the 2020 Census. Yet with the targeted questioning, exclusion, and cuts to funding threatening the census, people of color and immigrant communities still stand to be drastically undercounted. Make no mistake: this is intentional. The Trump administration is attempting to exploit what is meant to be an accurate reflection of America in 2020 into little more than a amplification of the Administration’s rampant racism, xenophobia, and bigotry.
When all of this is compounded -- an underfunded Bureau that will have trouble meeting its goals, a racially motivated citizenship question, and continued exclusion of the LGBTQ community -- the accuracy of the 2020 Census remains uncertain.
The ramifications of a tainted 2020 Census extend far beyond the tenure of the Trump administration. The census is the foundation of our democracy and should receive the resources and support needed to carry out a successful count of every person living in the United States. The allocation of funds, resources, and congressional representation stands to persist until the following decennial census in 2030, affecting countless people and communities along the way.
Help keep the census fair: Say no to Trump's anti-immigrant citizenship question!