Distribution of Census-Guided Federal Funds - Establishing the Feasibility of an Essential-Data Decennial Census and 21st Century Census Information Platform

We propose to return the decennial census to its original focus to fully enumerate the population for apportionment through an Essential-Data Count of the Resident Population. This would be connected to a 21st Century Census Information Platform designed to provide continuous measurements over the decade through the augmentation of the 2020 decennial census with multi-source federal and private sector data sources. This would be designed to provide continuous measurements for use in the allocation of federal funds, redistricting, and many other uses. Here we describe the feasibility of this proposal in the context of federal funding distributions.

The use of the decennial census data for taxation and allocation of federal funds was sporadic until the 1950s and 1960s when Congress expanded federal aid to state and local governments through grants and other mechanisms. This flow of federal funds provided resources to support housing assistance, employment, training, and assistance programs to poor and low-income households, to create and maintain the interstate highway system, and water and sewer infrastructure. In FY 2017, $1.504 trillion is distributed to state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and households for 316 federal spending programs (Reamer 2019). These allocations are significant, accounting for 7.8% of Gross Domestic Product (Reamer 2019). Thus, obtaining accurate population counts by geographic areas and need is important to state and local areas to ensure they receive their share of federal funding.

Keller S, Shipp S. Distribution of Census-Guided Federal Funds - Establishing the Feasibility of an Essential-Data Decennial Census and 21st Century Census Information Platform, Technical Report BI-2022-024. Proceedings of the Biocomplexity Institute, University of Virginia; 2022.https://doi.org/10.18130/xavc-v021

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Grants G-2019-11316 and G-2020-14002