New Challenges Arise for Minorities in 2010 census

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New Challenges Arise for Minorities in 2010 census

by The Associated Press , March 18, 2009

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In 1990, the census missed an estimated 8 million people, mostly immigrants and urban minorities, advocacy groups say, and it counted about 4 million Whites twice, mostly college students and people who owned two homes. There was less of a minority undercount in 2000.

The impact of undercounting can be significant. For example, about 838,000 Californians went uncounted in 1990, which cost the state $223 million in Medicaid and other federal programs, according to the GAO.

In minority communities, enumerators are asked to look for signs of extra people: additional mailboxes or utility meters, new units built in back of older housing, garages that have been converted into apartments.

But such efforts will be for naught unless there is proper marketing to educate people on the importance of the census, advocates and government officials agree.

“And not a marketing campaign directed at 60-year-old White guys like me,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., who chairs the Senate subcommittee overseeing the census, “but to younger people, people who may not speak English well, who we might otherwise leave out.”

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Comments posted here may be reprinted in Diverse: Issues In Higher Education magazine, and may be edited for purposes of clarity and/or space.

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