Demography is Destiny - The United States Needs an Accurate Black Count

By National Urban League
Published07 AM EST, Tue Nov 5, 2024
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Recent independent research conducted on the 2020 Census Black count estimates a potential net undercount of the Black population at extraordinarily high levels. If these estimates are anywhere near accurate, implications for Black communities and the Nation, overall, will be far reaching. The simulation, conducted by Connie Citro, Ph.D., a senior scholar at the Committee on National Statistics at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, calculated a net Black 2020 Census undercount (for persons choosing Black Alone), between 3.24% and 7.25%--potentially three times greater than the 2.3% net undercount in 2010.

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Download Research Notes (PDF)
  • A second Citro finding suggests the undercount of Black children could be as much as 10 times higher than a decade ago.
     
  • The implications of a large Black undercount are of high risk to all local and state populations regardless of race, who will miss out on a wide array of services and federal funding—like infrastructure improvements and COVID-19 relief.
     
  • A high Black undercount is a threat to national domestic policy, including the White House’s “Build Back Better” priorities.  You cannot rebuild what you can’t see or count.
     
  • The Black undercount directly impacts the integrity of local and state governance, redistricting and representation as well as the composition of the Electoral College and the U.S. Congress.  
     
  • The Census Bureau will not release data that measures 2020 Census accuracy among demographic groups until 2022.
     
  • We must push for increased data accuracy from Census, more timely and granular process information from its field operations during the 2020 count, and increased transparency revealing what really happened during the Trump Administration’s all out efforts to stop the count of Black and Brown people in the 2020 Census.  
     
  • Congress must hold hearings on the 2020 Census and the Census Bureau must be prepared to adjust the data to fix differential undercounts affecting Black and Brown populations.  
     
  • Census must provide more opportunities and tools for local governments to challenge their counts to ensure federal funding and rebuilding efforts are not missed.