CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Census Bureau has announced it's wrapping up field operations a month earlier than previously planned, and critics say the move could have serious long-term consequences for North Carolina public schools.

The census count determines how much federal education money the state receives, and Deborah Weinstein -- executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs -- noted that North Carolina schools need even more cash for building upgrades, additional staff and Personal Protective Equipment to help keep children and teachers safe in the pandemic.

She said for every child who isn't counted, the state loses $1,700 a year.

"The loss of revenues means that there could be 79,000 teachers and other education staff laid off by the end of 2022 if they don't get more help," said Weinstein.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has sent a letter calling for a four-month extension of the census deadline, but President Donald Trump has said he wants the data to go to Congress by December 31. The lawmakers said they want to extend that time frame to April 30 of next year.

North Carolina's current count is slightly below the national average of 62%, and more than two in five residents haven't responded yet.

Lindy Studds, a member of the 2020 Census Community Partnership and Engagement Program said responding online or by phone means the Census Bureau can tally households faster.

"The less we have to go out to those houses, the better for everyone," said Studds. "And so that's why, since that is starting the second week in August, we're encouraging everyone to respond today, all without having to need a census taker. We refer to that as 'avoiding the knock.'"

While it's easy for many households to respond online, Weinstein added that some groups are harder to reach and count. She says that's why an extension is critical.

"It takes time to reach people in rural areas," said Weinstein. "And young children, people of color, immigrants and the poor are missed most often."

An undercount means fewer federal dollars for housing, transportation, health care, education, and emergency-response services. More than $675 billion in federal funds over the next decade will be attached to state and local population counts.


get more stories like this via email

A new report found Texas likely undercounted the number of people who actually live in the state when gathering information for the 2020 census.

The census guides where federal money -- some $1.5 trillion -- is spent based on population. Texas was one of six states showing an undercount, while eight states showed an overcount.

Thomas Wolf, deputy director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the new data will not change the population numbers used for Congressional reapportionment or redistricting, but can have a direct effect on people's well-being.

"If your state goes undercounted, there's a risk that you'll end up with less funding than you should for things like education, health care, food assistance, highways," Wolf outlined. "Basically, the whole infrastructure of your community and state."

Before the census, advocates warned of a significant undercount in the Latino population after the Trump administration tried to add a question about citizenship to the census. Although the question eventually was excluded, experts say it could have triggered lower response rates from Latinos.

California, the most populous U.S. state, did not have a significant population undercount in the census, but Wolf noted it also spent $187 million in supplemental census outreach, while Texas declined to spend any money on outreach.

"The decision itself, regardless of the motivation, is sort of penny wise/pound-foolish," Wolf remarked. "Yes, you save money from not investing in census outreach, but what you get in return is an undercount that then deprives you of millions of federal dollars."

According to the Urban Institute, if the residents of Texas had been counted accurately in 2020, the state would have received at least $247 million more in 2021 federal Medicaid reimbursements. Other states among the top six likely undercounting their population include Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi and Tennessee.

A new report found the 2020 census significantly undercounted the Latino population nationwide, by almost 5%, more than three times the undercount from the 2010 census.

By establishing population data, the census guides where federal dollars are spent.

Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the undercount could mean less money for dozens of programs benefiting children and young adults in Nevada, including Medicaid and food assistance.

"The federal funding implicates things like education, child care services, transportation, parks and health care," Saenz outlined. "There isn't really a federal program or even state and local decision-making that is not going to be affected by an undercount in the census."

An analysis from the Urban Institute last winter projected an undercount of more than 20,000 people of all races statewide, including a slight overcount of white residents and a net undercount of 2.19% for Hispanics living in Nevada.

Before the census, advocates warned of a significant undercount in the Latino population after the Trump administration tried to add a question about citizenship to the census.

Saenz believes the move was designed to trigger lower response rates, specifically from the Latino community.

"And even though many of those efforts were stopped in court, the public attention to them clearly had an impact," Saenz observed. "That means that the Latino community will suffer as a result of that undercount over the course of the next decade."

The pandemic made it much harder to obtain an accurate count, because so many people had to move after losing their jobs. Children, particularly those from low-income families who tend to be renters, have traditionally been the hardest for census-takers to count.

Wisconsin is pushing ahead with a Republican-drawn legislative redistricting plan, after a ruling Friday by the state Supreme Court held the GOP maps were the most race-neutral option.

The state high court previously chose Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' legislative maps, but the decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held the state court did not provide enough justification a new Black-majority assembly district called for in Evers' plan was necessary.

Mel Barnes, staff attorney for the legal firm Law Forward, argued in a discussion hosted by the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition Monday the Republican maps violate the Voting Rights Act, opening them up to further potential litigation.

"The purpose of legislation like this, that grew out of the civil rights movement and was a triumph that people around this country organized for and pushed for, was to make sure that we weren't drawing districts in a way that diluted these votes," Barnes asserted.

Under the GOP plan, Milwaukee County will now have five Assembly districts with a majority of Black voters, down from the current six and Evers' planned seven. The U.S. Supreme Court left in place the governor's congressional redistricting plan. Evers issued a statement Friday, writing the ruling was outrageous and "an unconscionable miscarriage of justice."

Republicans would have kept their majorities in the Senate and Assembly under Evers' maps, although to a lesser degree than in the new GOP-drawn maps, which put them a few assembly seats shy of a veto-proof legislative majority.

Sachin Chheda, director of the Fair Elections Project, pointed out Evers' maps were already based on lines drawn by Republicans in 2011, as a previous state Supreme Court ruling held new voting maps should be based as much as possible on the current ones.

"So that meant that every option was going to be a gerrymandered map," Chheda contended. "It was just how gerrymandered was it going to be?"

Voting-rights advocates argue Wisconsin's 2011 maps were among the most gerrymandered in the nation. The plan was also challenged to the U.S. Supreme Court, which tossed out the case in 2019 in 2019, arguing it did not have the authority to consider partisan gerrymandering claims. Barring future legal challenges, the new maps will be in place until 2031.