A new tool has been created to help communities reach out to populations that are at a high risk of being undercounted in next year’s census.
It was created by the Michigan League for Public Policy.According to the organization, young children, minority and immigrant children, and children in poverty and in rural communities are most likely to be undercounted.
Parker James, who’s with the league, says the new data tool will help communities reach out to populations that are at risk of an undercount.
“If I was working in an organization in one of these counties and I saw there’s over 600 kids in households that are speaking other than English I would want to think about how can we reach those families, reassure them that the census is important and that their answers are confidential,” James said.
According to James, about 10 percent of children in Michigan were undercounted in the 2010 census.
“If the undercount continues on that track, it’s estimated Michigan could lose $1,800 in federal funding each year for every person who is not counted in the next census,” James said.
