Last year, minority advocates representing multiple backgrounds called for people to partake in the 2020 census. Many of them feared that if undercounted, minorities would lose or miss out on funding. Lack of representation and participation in the census leads to a lack of funding or programming available for communities for an entire decade. Census totals are used to determine funding amounts for both local and state governments; without accurate numbers, funding cannot be distributed adequately. While not as “dire as some had feared,” that concern is now a reality. According to a research report by the Urban Institute, the 2020 census—which cost approximately $14.2 billion—likely undercounted people of color at higher rates than previous censuses. The report, released Tuesday, notes that while the Census Bureau may have continued to overcount people who identified as white and not Latino, it likely failed to count nearly 2.5 million people in other racial and ethnic groups. Read more