A POGO report said Florida suffers from an undercount, which will hurt worse if counts exclude undocumented immigrants.
The post Could a proposed Census rule cost Florida billions in aid — or even a House seat? appeared first on Florida Politics – Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..
—
Experts say Florida’s population was already undercounted in the last census. Could a new rule excluding undocumented immigrants and most other noncitizens from the next count short the state a U.S. House seat?
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) says a rule proposed by the U.S. Commerce Department under President Donald Trump would worsen the inequity for Florida compared to other states, building on the group’s report tracing how census counts steer federal funding. In addition to potential billions lost in healthcare, education, and infrastructure funding, a worse miscount could cost the state political clout in Congress when seats are reapportioned.
The Commerce Department is collecting comments on the proposed rule through Nov. 2.
Republican leadership in Florida, including Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier, has argued that Florida deserves more House seats while overcounted states like California should have seats taken away. That argument helped justify a rare mid-decade redistricting this Spring that the Governor’s Office said accommodated growth, even though the new map relied on 2020 census data.
“The 2020 census already missed Florida by 3.48%, and the population figures federal programs use until 2030 build on that short count,” a statement from POGO reads. “A rule that makes the 2030 count less accurate could carry the gap into another decade.”
The POGO report, citing the Census Bureau’s own post-count survey, lists Florida among six states with statistically significant undercounts in 2020. Florida’s count was off by 3.48%, a larger undercount than any state but Arkansas (5.04%), Tennessee (4.78%), and Mississippi (4.11%).
The report also said the census most often missed people of color, young children, renters, and low-income families, groups that rely more heavily on federal assistance. POGO says the rule now proposed by the Trump administration, which would exclude undocumented immigrants and all other noncitizens except lawful permanent residents from the apportionment count, would make matters worse.
“Miscounts in the decennial census can send billions of dollars to the wrong places, depriving communities of the resources they need for an entire decade,” the report said.
Beyond political clout, that could mean a loss of census-guided funding across a range of programs. Census figures were used to direct $100.3 billion in Medicaid and Medicare funding to Florida in fiscal year 2023, plus $14.61 billion for nutrition support, community health centers, and other health programs.
Population counts also steered $7.51 billion in federal education funding, $5.4 billion for infrastructure projects, $4.35 billion for housing assistance, and $3.51 billion for business loans, small business assistance, and employment services.
All those totals should have been higher, based on POGO’s estimates of Florida’s true population.
On the political front, experts including the Brennan Center for Justice say Florida stands to gain three House seats in the next reapportionment, down from an earlier projection of four, if growth continues and the state is counted in full. Florida TaxWatch estimates show the state should have had at least one more seat after the last census, and two more if an accurate count had excluded undocumented immigrants.
But POGO officials said such a move would cost the state one of its expected new House seats, pointing to a recent analysis by The New York Times to back that up. That analysis relied on population data from the Pew Research Center and FWD.us.
The post Could a proposed Census rule cost Florida billions in aid — or even a House seat? appeared first on Florida Politics – Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..
