Census Missed Poor and Minorities Most
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 12/18/2002
On December 5, 2002, in response to a lawsuit filed by members of the House Committee on Government Reform, the US Census Bureau released its adjusted data for the 2000 census. After efforts to make the 2000 census a more accurate count, the preliminary adjusted data shows that still over six million Americans were not counted, and three million Americans were counted twice.Rep. Henry A. Waxman and ten other Democratic members of the Committee on Government Reform sent a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Minority Whip Elect Nancy Pelosi stating some of the findings. In addition to the miscounts, in all states except Alaska, Blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities were undercounted at much higher rates than Whites. Blacks were undercounted at a rate almost twice the national average, Hispanics at two and half times that average, and Native Americans, Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders at three to four times that average. In total, almost 750,000 Blacks and 1.2 millions Hispanics were not counted in the 2000 census.
The analysis of the data also shows that the population not counted tended to be poor and live in urban or rural areas, while the population counted twice tended to be affluent and live in suburban areas. States critically affected by the undercount included California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Georgia, which alone had close to 1.5 million undercounted.
The minority members of the committee had asked for the release of the data in April 2001, but Secretary of Commerce Evans continued to withhold the information. After filing and winning a lawsuit in federal district court in California, Secretary Evans appealed the decision in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. After losing a similar case relevant to the release of the data, the information was finally released.
