Some US states and NYC succeed in getting 2020 census numbers double-checked and increased

Illinois is adding tens of thousands of people to its population total, and California is getting lost sailors on an aircraft carrier in the right location, after successfully requesting a revision of their 2020 census figures.

New York City also appears to have recently added an additional 1,090 residents to its population after the Census Bureau asked to double-check the city’s figures against U.S. population counts, city officials said.

The once-a-decade census provides population figures that help determine political power and the annual distribution of $2.8 trillion in federal funding. The Census Bureau has two programs that allow governments to have their population totals reviewed and adjusted if necessary. Nearly 200 petitions for review were filed by tribal, local and state governments for the 2020 census.

Changes from the assessments will only be applied to future annual population estimates used in determining federal funding for the remainder of the decade. They cannot be used to change how many congressional seats each state received during the apportionment process, nor the data used to redraw political districts.

Here’s how the ratings of two of the most populous U.S. states and the nation’s largest city recently resolved.

For the nation’s most populous state, with 38.9 million residents, it was more about putting things in the right place than adding people.

The placement of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, along with its more than 5,000 crew, has been corrected so that it is in National City, instead of neighboring San Diego. While part of the ship is in San Diego, what matters is where crew members get off and on the ship, and that part of Naval Base San Diego is in National City, state officials said.

The 4,000 inmates at Mule Creek State Prison were also transferred from Amador County to the city of Ione after California requested the change.

The reviews for California were “just an opportunity to let the bureau know that some things are in the wrong place,” Walter Schwarm, the state’s top demographer, said in an email.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced this month that the nation’s sixth-most populous state would add an additional 47,000 residents to its population total after the state requested a revision of its census figures. Illinois officials believed the 2020 census overlooked more than 40,500 people living in nursing homes or senior housing, and more than 5,800 students living in dormitories, the governor’s office said.

These “group stays” were among the hardest places to count when campuses closed and prisons and nursing homes closed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Census Bureau has established a separate program to address these challenges.

“This correction will provide millions in additional federal funding for critical programs and ensure that future counts reflect the true population of Illinois,” Pritzker said in a statement.

Despite the gains from the overhaul, they won’t come close to making up for the loss of nearly 264,000 residents since the 2020 census due to people moving from Illinois to other states, according to estimates released by the Census Bureau in December released. Only California and New York experienced greater population losses between 2020 and 2023.

Illinois was also one of six states undercounted in the 2020 census. The Census Bureau estimated that just under 2% of Illinois’ 12.5 million residents were missed.

The Census Bureau appears to have added 1,090 people to New York City, the most populous city in the US. The exact number is unknown, as the agency does not tell governments exactly how much the total has changed, but only that their assessment has changed in whole or in part. had been approved. City officials estimate the adjustment by comparing changes in the numbers released annually with population estimates from the Census Bureau, officials with the city’s Department of Urban Planning said.

New York City officials believed that hundreds of inmates and students from Hunter College, Pace University and Wagner College were missed in the 2020 count. The issue is moot at this point, because apportionment is off the table when it comes to adjusting the numbers, but New York State would not have lost a congressional seat if an additional 89 people had been counted during the 2020 census.

While the adjustment is relatively small in a city of 8.3 million, New York officials believe it could increase the $6.5 million in federal funding the city receives annually.

“Through thorough, rigorous research and careful tabulation, we were able to correct the census count and deliver more federal dollars to New York City,” Dan Garodnick, director of the Department of City Planning, said in an email.

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