2020 Census Undercounted Black, Latino and Indigenous People By Hundreds of Thousands Limiting Our Power

The Census Bureau announced Thursday that the 2020 census significantly undercounted the country's Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities. Non-white Hispanics were overcounted slightly. The 2020 census undercounted the country's population by nearly 800,000 people. The following is a statement from Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law:

"The decennial Census is a once in a decade opportunity for our federal government to assess the makeup, needs and desires of our nation and serves as the foundation for apportioning congressional representatives and redistricting. This undercount means we are saddled with inaccurate numbers for the next decade. The consequences are serious. The undercounting of Black, Latino, Indigenous and other communities of color robs us of the opportunity to be the directors of our fate, reducing our representation and limiting our power while depriving policymakers of the information they need to make informed decisions about where the next hospital will be built or where the next school should be located. In addition, the undercount exacerbates underfunding of our communities because Census data is used as the basis for hundreds of billions of dollars of federal, state and local appropriations each year."