After Census Undercounted Some Groups, Community Advocates Say More Outreach Was Needed


The 2020 Census undercounted Latino, Black and Indigenous people. That’s according to a survey by the U.S. Census Bureau itself.

A post-enumeration survey found an undercount of almost 5% for Latino people, 3.3% for Black people and 5.6% for Indigenous people.

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But at the same time, the White and Asian populations were over counted at a rate of 1.6% percent for White people, and 2.6% for Asian people.

Some advocates point to the pandemic as a reason for the undercount. Asiaha Butler, the co-founder and CEO of Resident Association of Greater Englewood, also known as RAGE, did community outreach to encourage residents to fill out the census.

On top of stalling much of the usual in-person census outreach, residents also were dealing with the effects of the pandemic.

“Folks were just more concerned about other things: how they were going to make money, how they were going to pay their gas and light bills,” Butler said. “It just was not a priority this year.”

Sylvia Puente, president and CEO of the Latino Policy Forum, also pointed to a lack of funding for the census. While the state did appropriate $29 million to outreach, she said there still was not enough enumerators and outreach.

“I only shudder to think what it would have been without that investment of $30 million,” Puente said.


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