The national economy might be in the doldrums, but the budget of the 2010 Census is bigger than ever.
At $15 billion, the outlay for the once-a-decade event is about three times the amount of the Census budget in 2000. Still, prominent experts predict that the 2010 Census will overlook many more people than the one in 2000, which undercounted the U.S. population by millions.
So how can this be? The short answer is this: The culprits are partisan politics and the challenge of counting illegal immigrants.
The Census count is used in determining the distribution of hundreds of billions of dollars to states based on population. Business owners, activists, residents, and elected officials stand to win – or lose – depending on the outcome and accuracy of the endeavor.
Clara Rodriguez, professor of sociology at Fordham University, said this year's Census political debates are hotter than ever.
"There's always been a lot of activity around this, but that activity in the past has been in the background, not at the forefront," said Ms. Rodriguez, author of the 2000 book, "Changing Race: Latinos, the Census and the History of Ethnicity in the United States."
"Now it's much more in the open," she said. "I think more and more people are realizing how important the Census is."
Miscount's Extent Questioned
Some of the fights are fiercely partisan; others are more academic. But as the political battles rage on, an important scientific question hangs in the balance: How many people is the count missing? According to official Census estimates, the 2000 count missed about 1 percent of the population.
But this figure probably understates the true extent of the miscount. Kenneth Prewitt, head of the U.S. Census count in 2000, told HispanicBusiness Magazine that he believes the undercount was more on the order of 3 percent.
And despite this year's funding boost, Mr. Prewitt, a public affairs professor at Columbia University who is also serving as a consultant to the Obama administration for the 2010 Census, predicts next year's count will miss even more people.
"I think it will be very hard for this Census to be as accurate as the last one," he said.
Mr. Prewitt attributes this largely to the skyrocketing population of illegal immigrants, which has shot up from an estimated 8 million in 2000 to 12 million in 2008.
"That's a hard population to count," he said. "And they have every reason to be suspicious of the government, because of the raids and so forth."
Add to this all the political debate already swirling around the Census, and it's easy to see how the science can get lost in a fog. So far this year, several firestorms have already erupted.
President Barack Obama's picks for Commerce Secretary – which oversees the Census Bureau – and the Census director have sparked outcry from Republicans and Democrats alike. Also, this year immigration advocates have turned against each other. On one side, a national coalition of Latino clergy members is urging undocumented residents to boycott the Census to spur immigration reform. On the other, politicians and activists say this will serve only to hurt the immigrants themselves.
15% Figure Predicted
As for the actual numbers, Census officials believe that the 2010 count will show 306 million Americans, 46 million – or 15 percent – of whom are Hispanics. That's up from 281 million Americans in the 2000 tally, in which about 35 million people – or 12.5 percent – identified themselves as Hispanic.
