It is almost time for us to count ourselves in the census demanded every 10 years by the U.S. Constitution. Originally, it divided up seats in the House of Representatives. Now it decides how to cut up hundreds of billions of dollars of federal spending.
Just about every census has had complaints about its accuracy. Albany has a state Complete Count Commission to make sure every resident is counted, as does Buffalo and Erie County.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown is a member and was there when the commission held a hearing Thursday night at Waterfront School.
Commission Chairman Jim Malatras said the first census was troubled because people did not want their names taken because of taxation. Malatras said it is in the best interests of every government to make sure addresses are correct. The state has already turned up 900,000 addresses the U.S. Census Bureau didn't know about, while Erie County uncovered 3,000.
"That's a tremendous number of new addresses, so we hope getting a real just count of the residencies out in the state will help enhance the response rate," Malatras said. "We did exceed other states like California, who did far less less updating of their address systems. So we think 900,000 new will greatly help the response rate this time around."
U.S. Census Bureau Regional Director Jeff Behler, in New York Regional Operations, said his agency knows what groups are hard to count and makes a special effort with them.
"We know the fastest-growing undercounted group from the 2010 Census was children under the age of five, so we take those communities, those Census tracts that have a large amount of children under the age of five, and we use that in our formulas that determine where we think it's going to be hard to count," Behler said. "African American males aged 18-24, another hard to count group. Renters, another hard to count group."
While many of the speakers were looking for help and money to help persuade people to fill out the forms. Albany has set aside $20 million to help with the count. There also were members of the city's burgeoning immigrant groups seeking help to get everyone counted. It is not yet clear if the census form will ask about citizenship.
"For the first time ever, I will be counted in my life (applause)," said Fidele Menavanza from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "That is only personal, that works for me, fully engaged, and I look forward to be engaged, to have rolled out and telling my community that's counted."
New numbers from the U.S. Census show New York State's population continued to decline last year. According to figures released Thursday, the state's total population dropped by more than 48,000 between July 1, 2017 and July 1, 2018, to a total of 19.5 million.
For many years, population declines in many upstate areas were offset by growth in and around New York City. This year, however, the Census Bureau reports the city's population declined by nearly 40,000 over the one-year period after officials revised international immigration estimates.
New York is the nation's fourth-largest state by population after California, Texas and Florida. Continued population declines could cost the state one or even two congressional seats when U.S. House seats are reapportioned following the 2020 census.
All areas of greatest population growth were in the South and West.
Locally, the Census Bureau counted just over 919.000 residents in Erie County, 216,000 in Niagara County and nearly 135,000 in Chautauqua County. Estimates for 2018 see decreases in Niagara and Chautauqua, while about the same number of residents in Erie.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
