A last-gasp effort by the Trump administration to mess with the 2020 census to undercount as many as 10.5 million people living in the United States with proper documents appears to have run into immovable opposition from the Supreme Court. At issue was whether to uphold tradition and law by getting an accurate understanding of how many people live here. Some Republicans in some states, already worrying about demographic changes in some of their power bases, have reason to fear shifts in the way seats in the House of Representatives are divided among the states if noncitizens are included in the count. But in this they think only of themselves — the decennial census is used to determine so much more.
The Covid-19 pandemic made collecting the data this year more difficult than ever, yet the big-picture accuracy is expected to be adequate, tallying every person living in the U.S. on April 1, including babies, small children, the homeless or people living in shelters, and immigrants, regardless of their legal status. Knowing how many people are in the United States and where they live and other details about the population is critical to managing the effectiveness of nearly everything government does.
For example, knowing how many working people are active in the U.S. now helps plan for Social Security payouts in the future. Without baseline data, an already strained system, one at the moment benefiting 64 million Americans, would face even greater financial trouble.
For health care providers and policy makers, accurate population numbers are essential. That information helps scientists know about the distribution of illness, as well as trace potential causes, such as cancers related to specific environmental or workplace exposure, ethnic factors, or obesity. Without good data, money might well end up going to solve nonexistent problems, robbing other challenges of funding and attention.
For businesses, the census is a window into their customers and how they plan for new operations, such as distribution systems. Some $400 billion flows from the federal government every year to state and local governments, a considerable portion of which is used for boosting economic sectors. Again, without good information, where to spend the money effectively is a crapshoot.
Roads, Medicare, Head Start, nutrition assistance, hospital funding, school lunches, and college tuition grants for students from lower income families all depend on the census. And yes, congressional districts are supposed to be based on equal apportionment of the population.
Whether or not some portion of the population of the U.S. is in the country legally is irrelevant when looked at from the perspective of costs and services. An underfunded medical system hurts all residents, regardless of their immigration status. The pandemic should help drive that point home.
Consider, too, that distribution of the expected several Covid-19 vaccines will be a logistical challenge of a scale not seen since World War II. Imagine how much more difficult it would be if those planning its roll-out did not know who to and where it should go. In this context, the effort to limit the census to legal residents is not just a political and financial mistake, it is also literally a matter of life and death.