This count really counts
If the estimates are right, New York could officially fall from the third most populous state to the fourth in the 2020 Census. A lot more than just being in the top three is riding on this.
Which makes it all the more puzzling that New York’s efforts to ensure every resident of the state is counted don’t match the urgency of the situation, or the urgent rhetoric of politicians.
The 2010 Census put New York’s population at 19.4 million, just ahead of Florida’s 18.8 million. While the Census Bureau says New York gained about 170,000 people in recent years, Florida has picked up a lot more — about 2.5 million. With an estimated 21.3 million people now, the Sunshine State far surpasses the Empire State, which weighs in at just over 19.5 million.
Those are only interim estimates, though. The count that truly matters is the national census that the U.S. Constitution requires every 10 years.
There’s more than bragging rights at stake. New York could lose representation in the House of Representatives, where, like Florida, it now has 27 seats. Losing seats means diminished representation in both Congress and the Electoral College, which chooses the president.
Fewer people also means potentially less federal money coming back to the state. An especially sore point for New York, which pays far more — $35.6 billion a year more, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government — than it gets back.
So a full count is crucial. It’s all the more pressing as the Trump administration tries to rig the census by inserting a question on citizenship, widely viewed as a way to intimidate immigrants — of which New York has at least 233,000, according to a 2017 estimate by the Migration Policy Institute based on data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. But that’s only an estimate. Again, it’s the census that matters.
So what’s New York doing about this? Importantly, it’s leading a coalition of states, cities and the U.S. Conference of mayors in challenging the citizenship question in court.
As for ensuring a full count, though, the effort is so far weak. Last spring, the Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo created a 16-member Complete Count Commission to report on a strategy by Jan. 10. That didn’t happen. The commission has never met. Gov. Cuomo didn’t make his eight appointments until more than two weeks after the report’s deadline. Senate Democrats have to name their three appointees. The governor also put no funding in his proposed budget for the work, which advocates say will require at least $40 million for things like raising public awareness on the need to participate in the census. The governor says he can get the money out of economic development funds.
All this feels pretty casual for a matter of such grave consequence to the state. It’s time the governor and lawmakers got as serious as they like to sound on this issue. “We’re Number Four” — or dare we say “Five” — is a prospect that would feel even worse than it sounds.