Melissa Harris-Lacewell discusses millions of $$$ lost to Chicago's black & brown communities due to census undercount on Rachel Maddow Show
I will look at the article you suggested. I agree with you about the importance of political representation lost as result of prisoners not being counted in the census; but I disagree with you about the impact of prisoner miscount on federal spending being small. I estimate the cost of the normal census undercount combined with a prisoner undercount is over $261 million for Cook County, Illinois where I live. I also would argue Chicago's poorest neighborhoods, which are located in Cook County, are disproportionately impacted by the lost of these funds which could be used for exoffender training, housing and other supports.They estimate the impact is even larger because states rely on the census to allocate other state funds to localities. Using PriceWaterhouseCooper's estimate of $2,913 lost in federal funds for each person that is uncounted and data from the Illinois Department of Corrections that shows 23,611 IDOC prisoners are from Cook County, I estimate an additional cost of the prisoner undercount to Cook County of $68,778,843. The combined impact of $193 million "normal" census undercount and $68.8 million prisoner undercount ($261.8 million) is an especially significant lost for the 7 low-income Chicago communities "A Study of Prisoner Reentry in Illinois" (2003) shows are where most prisoners return to live. The State of Illinois, Cook County and City of Chicago governments are all facing budget shortfalls; and Illinois taxpayers are not interested in tax increases. Exoffenders without training, housing and other support are going to return to their illegal activities and prison, causing further disruption of these communities.
Effect of Census 2000 Undercount on Federal Funding to Selected Counties
The Census 2000 undercount also will affect counties receiving a portion of federal grants allotted to
states. The net impact on county funding depends on the effect of the undercount on both the allocation
of federal funds between states (the "between-state" effect) and the allocation of funds among
jurisdictions within a state (the "within-state" effect). The net impact of the Census 2000 undercount
on the allocation of federal funds to counties is the sum of the between-state and within-state effects.
Over the 2002-2012 period, the federal funding loss to the 58 largest counties adversely affected by
the undercount is estimated to reach $3.6 billion, or $2,913 per uncounted person in these jurisdictions.
Because counties with large populations generally experience undercount rates that are higher
than the state average, we assume that they will fail to receive their proportionate share of any funds
distributed by the state based on unadjusted population counts. These "within-state" effects cause the
funding losses of metropolitan areas to exceed the funding losses at the state level.
Eight counties are estimated to lose over $100 million each in federal funds: Los Angeles County, CA;
Bronx County, NY; Kings County, NY (which comprises the borough of Brooklyn, NY); Harris
County, TX (which contains the city of Houston, TX); New York County, NY (which comprises the
borough of Manhattan, NY); Cook County, IL (Chicago), Dallas County, TX, and Miami-Dade
County, FL (see Figure C). In New York City, the funding loss across the five boroughs is estimated
to reach $847 million. Because some state-funded grant programs also rely on the decennial census
for purposes of allocating funds among localities, the impact of the Census 2000 undercount on metropolitan
areas will be larger than the federal funding effect.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment