By Kim Goll, The Daily Californian, May 8, 2020
Today in California, there are an estimated 210,000 children younger than 6 hiding in plain sight — they weren’t counted in the last U.S. census. As a result, communities in our state missed out on a decade’s worth of crucial funding for programs to support them, including those that provide basic necessities such as food, shelter and health care.
The census is mandated by the U.S. Constitution and determines how billions of dollars of federal funding are distributed to each state every year. This money is for critical programs that families rely on every day. In 2010, the total undercount for children younger than 6 was 1 million — California had the highest undercount of young children of any state.
Ensuring our youngest children are counted in the census has been a historical challenge. There is evidence that the undercount for this population has increased in recent decades, even as coverage for other age groups has improved. In fact, the 2010 census had a net undercount of 4.6% for young children.
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