These three states will be hit hardest by Trump’s abrupt census cutoff

Texas, Florida, and California, with their increasing populations of hard-to-count demographics, could lose devastating amounts of federal funding due to the botched 2020 census.

Government money used to fund social programs like medical care, food stamps, and education are allocated based on the census. Though not in a direct per-capita ratio, a lower population count definitively means less funding.

California, Texas, and Florida, with proportionally high and growing populations of Black, immigrant and Latinx residents, have a lot at stake. These populations, known to be hard to count in the census, will be even more undercounted with the early cutoff.

California tops the list when it comes to population-based federal funds (it received around $171 billion in 2017) and its population is around 39 percent Latinx and 27 percent immigrant as of 2018. It isn’t surprising, then, that “three in four Californians belong to at least one demographic group that is ‘hard to count’ and that the state loses roughly $2,000 annually for every Californian not counted.”

Having received $101 billion in census-based funding in 2017, Texas could receive $800 billion over the next ten years if the census goes smoothly. But Texas has the second-largest Latinx population in the country, and undercounts near the Mexican border, where immigrant, Black, and Latinx populations tend to be concentrated, are already severe.

Texas could lose $300 million per year of federal funding for just a one percent undercount, and in a state where 60 percent of uninsured residents are Latinx, this loss could depreciate already less-than-universal Medicare coverage for this vulnerable population. Southwest Texas, near the border, has already been hit harder than most other regions in the state by Covid-19.

Florida, which received $86 billion in 2017 from census-allocated funds and would be set to receive around that amount or more annually for the next decade if counted properly, also has high proportions of Black and Latinx residents (around 17 percent and 26 percent respectively) that are likely to be heavily undercounted.

This state relies heavily on federal funding for infrastructure and disaster relief due to its high proportion of natural disasters. An undercount could put disaster recovery efforts at risk, especially in more rural areas where the effects of reduced spending are felt most keenly.

This could cost lives in already vulnerable communities. Hard-to-count demographics will be sharply underrepresented in the census when they need federal resources most.

For the next ten years, and further decades to come, the growing Black, Latinx, and immigrant communities of these states will be particularly vulnerable. And because of the moved-up deadline, it will be in the GOP’s purview to disempower them—no matter who comes out on top this upcoming Election Day.