Time to retool census? Some think so after minorities missed

By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press

Policymakers and demographers have been asking whether it’s time to rethink the census after results released last week that showed Black, Hispanic and American Indian residents were undercounted in greater rates in 2020 than a decade ago. Even before it released last week’s report card on how good a job it did on the 2020 census, the Census Bureau had been inching toward a new system of data gathering that relies on administrative records gathered from places like the IRS, Social Security Administration and third-party data companies. The undercounts in the 2020 census were blamed on the pandemic, natural disasters and political interference from the Trump administration, but undercounts of racial and ethnic minorities have been persistent for decades.