The 2020 Census undercounted children under the age of 4 in Florida by almost 10%, according to estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The agency said the estimated error is the largest undercount of young children by a state in the United States.
In 2020, Florida had 112,000 children under the age of 4, according to estimates from Demographic Analysis, which uses administrative records to estimate population size. More than a few people were overlooked.
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Demographic analysis is one of the tools the Census Bureau uses to calculate how well it did at counting all U.S. residents during the census, which determines how many Congressional seats each state receives.
FILE – Thomas Leadership Academy students play on the school playground in Eatonville, Florida, Aug. 23, 2023. Children under the age of 4 in Florida were undercounted by almost 10% in the last 10-year census. The number of young children is undercounted among the most U.S. states, according to estimates released Thursday, April 11, 2024, by the U.S. Census Bureau. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Vermont had the lowest undercount of young children in the 2020 Census, by a negligible percentage, equivalent to six children.
Preschoolers are the most difficult age group to count and are routinely missed in national head counts, and this oversight can starve communities of federal funding for programs like Head Start. . An estimated 1 million children under the age of 4 were overlooked nationwide in the 2020 census, an undercount of approximately 5.5%.
Parents often don’t know whether to include babies on their census forms, and young children can sometimes be overlooked if they live in multigenerational households or two households due to joint custody.
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“These undercounts are often correlated with undercounts of certain racial and ethnic groups, along with other factors that cannot be directly measured,” Census Bureau Director Robert Santos said in a statement. “We are working diligently to address this issue.”
