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FEBRUARY 21, 2001

On Tuesday, the group which monitors the Census Bureau made a big attempt at influencing the President George W. Bush administration on how best to use data from the 2000 Census.

But their research and reports might not sway the government at all. Reversing a policy instituted by former President Bill Clinton, Department of Commerce Secretary Donald Evans has announced that he, and not Census Bureau professionals, will make the final decision on using raw or corrected data.

The move essentially guarantees that a plan advanced by Republicans to use raw data to determine new political districts and corrected data to determine federal funding will be approved. Democrats and civil rights groups, however, oppose the idea because they say minorities, the poor, and children will be disenfranchised.

Presenting a number of studies which analyzed data from the 1990 Census, the Presidential Members of the US Census Monitoring Board said in fact that every level of society will be affected. Federal funding, political districts, and social services are most at risk due to undercounts in the Census, they said.

"These studies present overwhelming evidence that the undercount, if not corrected, will have damaging effects at every level of our society," said Gilbert F. Casellas, Presidential Co-Chair.

Among the Monitoring Board's findings:

• Nearly 3,000 American Indians in the Albuquerque, New Mexico were missed by the 1990 Census resulting in inadequate funding for education, social, and tribal programs
• An undercount of 400,000 uninsured Americans, many of whom were African-Americans and Hispanics, cause a loss of $960 million in health care costs
• In the nine of 10 most undercounted states in the 1990 Census, at least 44 state legislative districts would have been changed to benefit minority voters
• As many as 2 million children in poverty were missed by the 1990 Census, resulting in funding disparities for Medicaid, Headstart, and other programs
• The city of Long Beach, California, lost at least $10 million in services as a result of the 1990 undercount

Preliminary results from the 2000 Census do indicate improvements in the counting of minorities, including residents of Indian Country. In 1990, some 12.2 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives living on reservations were missed.

The Census now says as little as 2.8 percent or as high as 6.7 percent of the Native population have been missed this time around. But while the Monitoring Board congratulated the Census Bureau for conducting one of the best counts in history, they warned that there are still many unknowns.

According to Ted Jojola, a University of New Mexico professor, even the slightest unknown can have a dramatic effect on tribes and Native Americans. He conducted the undercount study of American Indians in the New Mexico.

"When we are looking even at very small adjustments in population, these directly transfer into the types of funds that are obligated for the provision of health care, for the provision of schooling, for the provision of other entitlement types of programs," said Jojola.

"Every American Indian and Native Alaskan does make a substantial difference," he added.

Evans is expected to make a decision on the Census in the coming weeks.

Relevant Links:
US Census Monitoring Board - www.cmpb.gov
US Census Bureau - www.census.gov

Related Stories:
Early census results show improvement (Politics 2/15)
Report warns of Census undercount (Politics 2/12)
Reservation counties among poorest (The Talking Circle 11/24)
Census reports on uninsured Natives (The Talking Circle 10/02)
Census: Native Americans among poorest (The Talking Circle 9/27)
National, state poverty data (The Talking Circle 9/27)
Most reservations miss Census target (The Talking Circle 09/20)
Tribal response rates: 1990-2000 (The Talking Circle 9/20)
Report: Native buying power increases (Money Matters 9/8)
Native purchasing power by state (Money Matters 9/8)
Native population on the rise (The Talking Circle 08/31)
Census data by state (The Talking Circle 08/31)
Reservations respond to Census (The Talking Circle 4/20)