NYC Succeeds in Getting 2020 Census Numbers Double-Checked and Increased

New York City appears to have gotten an additional 1,090 people added to its population total recently after asking the Census Bureau to double-check the city’s numbers from the head count of every U.S. resident, city officials said.

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

Changes from the reviews will be applied only to future annual population estimates used for the rest of the decade in determining federal funding. They can’t be used to change how many congressional seats each state was allotted during the apportionment process, nor for the data used for redrawing political districts.

The bureau doesn’t tell governments precisely how much the total was changed, only that all or part of their review was approved. City officials estimated the adjustment by comparing changes in numbers that are released annually with population estimates from the Census Bureau, said officials in the city’s Department of City Planning.

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

Although the adjustment is comparatively small in a city of 8.3 million residents, New York City officials believe it could amount to an additional $6.5 million each year in federal funding that the city receives.

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

With reporting by wire services