Census Missed More Than 1.5M Minorities In 2010

The 2010 census missed more than 1.5 million minorities, after struggling to count Black Americans, Hispanics, renters, and young men.

The Census Bureau on Tuesday released an extensive assessment of its high-stakes, once-a-decade headcount of the U.S. population. Based on a sample survey, the government analysis has been a source of political controversy in the past over whether to “statistically adjust” census results to correct for undercounts, which usually involve minorities who tend to vote Democratic.

The findings show the 2010 census over-counted the total U.S. population by 36,000 people, or 0.01 percent, due mostly to duplicate counts of affluent whites owning multiple homes. That is an improvement from a census over-count of 0.5 percent in 2000.