Tag Archives: U.S. Census Bureau

U.S. to release census data used for legislative redistricting

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – The U.S. Census Bureau will release data on Thursday from the 2020 census that states will use to draw congressional and state legislative districts for the next decade, marking the start of what will be a fierce partisan battle over redistricting.

Demographers also expect the data to show that the country’s white population is declining for the first time in history, with people of color representing virtually all population growth.

The release will arrive months later than originally expected after the census took longer to complete due to the coronavirus pandemic. The delay has forced some states to go to court to postpone their redistricting deadlines.

States use the data to redraw district lines for the U.S. House of Representatives after each decennial census, based on where people now reside.

In April, the bureau published state-level figures, showing that Texas, Florida and North Carolina – all states controlled by Republicans – will gain congressional seats next year based on increased populations.

Electoral analysts have said Republicans could potentially erase the Democrats’ thin advantage in the House through redistricting alone.

Thursday’s more detailed data will show how and where the country’s white, Black, Hispanic and Asian communities grew.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by David Gregorio)

Texas, Florida among states to gain U.S. House seats in latest census

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) -Texas, Florida and North Carolina are among the states that will add congressional seats next year, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Monday, as it released population data that reapportions U.S. House of Representatives members and Electoral College votes among the states.

The release of the data, which captured the entire U.S. population as of April 2020, sets the stage for a battle that could reshape political power in Washington over the next decade.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the 435 seats in the House and the votes in the Electoral College that select the U.S. president every four years are divided among the 50 states based on population, with every state receiving at least one congressional seat.

The seats are reallocated every 10 years following the decennial census count.

Texas will receive two congressional seats, and five states – Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Montana and Oregon – will gain one congressional seat each, the census bureau said.

New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia will each lose one seat.

The shift in seats to states such as Texas and Florida, where Republicans control the statehouses, could be enough to erase Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the House. Republicans in both of those states have in the past engaged in aggressive gerrymandering, the process by which maps are deliberately redrawn to benefit one party over another.

Every state uses the census data to redraw lines both for districts and thousands of state legislative seats, a process known as redistricting.

That work cannot be completed until the census releases more precise block-by-block data, which is slated for September. The delay has raised concerns about whether states will have time to complete redistricting ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts have no power to restrict political gerrymandering, although racial gerrymandering – which aims to curb the political power of specific racial or ethnic groups – remains unlawful.

The four most populous U.S. states – California, Texas, Florida and New York – have more than 110 million residents combined and will hold about one-third of the House seats.

The shift of seven seats among 13 states was the smallest number of seats moving among states in any decade since the current method of calculating them was adopted in 1941, officials said.

Overall, the U.S. population stood at 331,449,281 as of April 2020, a 7.4% increase over the previous decade, according to the agency. That rise is the second-slowest in history, behind only the 1930s, census officials said.

Utah’s population grew faster than any other state’s, increasing by more than 18% since 2010. Only three states lost population, led by West Virginia, which saw its population decrease by 3.2%.

Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, grew by 14.6% to a population of 689,545. Congressional Democrats have passed legislation to admit the district as the 51st state, but Republicans oppose the measure.

The territory of Puerto Rico, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017, has seen its population decrease by 11.8% since 2010.

Wyoming remains the least populated state, with 576,851 residents.

(Reporting by Joseph AxAdditional reporting by Jason Lange and Doina ChiacuEditing by Bill Berkrot and Sonya Hepinstall)

U.S. median income hit record high before coronavirus hit, Census says

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. median household income hit a record high in 2019 and the poverty rate fell, according to a government survey released on Tuesday that offered a snapshot of the economy before millions of American jobs were destroyed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.S. Census Bureau said real median household income jumped 6.8% from $64,324 in 2018 to $68,703 last year – the highest since the agency began tracking the data in 1967.

It also said the nation’s poverty rate fell last year to 10.5%, a 1.3-percentage-point drop. Another measure of poverty that adjusts for government aid programs for low-income Americans showed a drop to 11.7% last year from 12.8% in 2018.

At the same time, however, the number of people without health insurance for at least part of the year hit 29.6 million, up one million from the year before. The number of uninsured children also grew.

The report offered a look back at the state of the economy before the novel coronavirus outbreak hit the United States early this year, shuttering many businesses as the country sought to contain the pandemic.

Since then, more than 6.5 million people in the United States have contracted the highly contagious virus and more than 194,000 have died. Vast swaths of the economy were devastated and 22 million Americans were thrown out of work.

While activity is now rebounding, economists warn that the recovery may be uneven as federal stimulus money runs out with no signs of replenishment from Washington. A potential second wave of COVID-19 infections this autumn and winter as people move back indoors also looms large.

President Donald Trump, who had staked his re-election on economic gains before the outbreak, has downplayed impact of the virus and the risk of another wave, as he has urged states to fully re-open. He has also repeatedly touted gains on Wall Street – a narrow gauge of economic performance – and pledged to rebuild the economy if he wins a second term.

His Democratic rival in the Nov. 3 election, former Vice President Joe Biden, has said the gains since COVID-19 emerged have been uneven and have left many segments of the working population still reeling.

“Those at the top see things going up. But those in the middle and below see things getting worse. And we have leaders who bear false witness, want us to believe that our country isn’t gone off track,” Biden said on Monday.

A Reuters/Ispos poll in late August showed American’s support for Trump’s handling of the economy has slipped.

The income and poverty data for 2019, the last year of the economic expansion following the 2007-2009 Great Recession, “do not reflect the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic or the current recession,” Census’ Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division chief David Waddington told reporters on a conference call.

Census officials and private economists cautioned that the COVID-19 outbreak impacted data collection as the agency suspended in-person interviews earlier this year.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Tim Ahmann; additional reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis and Marguerita Choy)