Congressman Krishnamoorthi Requests Update From Census Bureau On Efforts To Prevent Undercounting Of Illinois Following December Release Of Population Estimates

WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi wrote to U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Santos regarding the status of the Bureau's efforts to correct its previous undercounting of Illinois' population in the wake of a December population estimate that echoed previous reports, which were ultimately revealed to be unfounded, that the state had lost population. These previous reports, the 2019 American Community Survey Population Estimate and the 2020 Decennial Census were ultimately contradicted by the Post-Enumeration Survey, released in May 2022 as part of an effort to verify the accuracy of other studies, which concluded that the Illinois' population had actually grown over the previous decade to its highest level in history.

The full text of Congressman Krishnamoorthi's letter follows below.

Robert Santos

Director

U.S. Census Bureau

4600 Silver Hill Road

Washington, DC 20233

Dear Director Santos:

In light of last month's Census Bureau announcement concerning population estimates, I'm writing to express my ongoing concerns surrounding the repeated undercounting of the population of Illinois in the American Community Survey (ACS) and the 2020 Census, as assessed by the Post-Enumeration Survey (PES).[1] Fundamentally, this latest release's claim that Illinois lost a substantial number of residents in 2022 appears to closely echo the previous ACS and Census results that fueled misleading rhetoric surrounding purported population losses in Illinois which were later revealed to be unfounded by the PES.[2]

In my repeated letters sent last year, I requested information on the ACS and Census data which showed Illinois population losses of substantially different orders, only for the May PES to conclude that 14 states had an undercount or overcount in the Census and that Illinois was among them with an undercount of hundreds of thousands of people. Beyond discrediting years of false rhetoric about Illinois population losses driven by Census Bureau products, these findings also raise serious public questions in my state over the credibility of the Census Bureau's results more broadly because of the substantially different conclusions of its recent releases regarding our state. Census Bureau undercounting of our state poses potentially enormous financial consequences for Illinois because over the next decade, Census Bureau data will be utilized to allocate roughly $1.5 trillion through approximately 100 programs, including Medicaid, SNAP, Medicare, Highway Planning and Construction, and Pell grants.

In your June response to my letters with colleagues on this matter, you wrote that regarding incorporating PES findings into data products that inform funding allocations that, "the Census Bureau has established a team of experts tasked with researching the feasibility of taking coverage measures from the Demographic Analysis and Post-Enumeration Survey into account in the development of the official population estimates." Additionally, in response to the question of whether the Bureau would commit to utilizing the PES in deriving Population Estimates from the Decennial Census, you wrote, "While too early to commit to incorporating PES into the population estimates, the Census Bureau is researching the feasibility of taking coverage measures from both the Demographic Analysis and Post-Enumeration Survey into account in the development of the official population estimates."[3]

Last month, I wrote to request clarity on the implementation of PES findings into population estimates, the timeline for doing so, and related efforts to address the repeated undercounting of Illinois. In addition to renewing my request for that information, I request answers to these additional questions by January 20th:

1. Were coverage measures from the May 2022 Demographic Analysis and Post-Enumeration Survey results which showed Illinois' population growth accounted for in the December 2022 population estimates, or did the methodology omit these considerations while following the previous ACS and Census approaches. which led to the undercounting of Illinois' population?
2. If coverage measures from last year's Demographic Analysis and Post-Enumeration Survey have not yet been incorporated into annual population estimates, when will they be?
3. Were any other new efforts undertaken to address the consistent undercounting of the population of Illinois in producing the December 2022 population estimates?
4. Have any new factors been identified as contributing to the repeated undercounting of Illinois?

Sincerely,

Raja Krishnamoorthi

Member of Congress-Elect

A full copy of Congressman Krishnamoorthi's new letter to the Census Bureau is available here.