Days after Atlanta and Fulton County officials said they plan to challenge what they perceive as an undercount in the 2010 census, the subject came up at a Friday speech by U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Groves at Georgia State University.
Sociology professor Charles Jaret said he and some of his students -- some of whom worked for the Census during its count -- were shocked when the city's final tally was about 420,000 residents.
Previous results from the Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program between 2007 and 2009 showed Atlanta with about 519,000 to 540,000 residents, Jaret noted.
The difference is important because billions in federal assistance is tied to the every 10-year population count.
"Frankly we were scratching our heads," Jaret told Groves, who was at GSU's Andrew Young School of Policy Studies for the W.J. Usery Distinguished Lecture.
Groves spent the majority of the meeting talking about the importance of credibility and relevance in the census. Responding to Jaret, he said the discrepancies in the Atlanta numbers could stem from a number of issues.
The 2007 and 2009 estimates were derived from several sources, including birth and death certificates, in-migration and out-migration statistics and population counts provided by cities, he said. Housing figures also were used. Atlanta's vacancy rate grew from 10 percent in 2000 to 17.6 percent in 2010, according the census. Fulton saw similar growth.
"The vacancy rate right now is much bigger than it was in 2000," Groves said. "That is part of the challenge."
While accuracy is essential to the census, Groves said it is also important for those who gather statistics to be able to communicate them in a way this digestible -- and in today's partisan climate -- objective.
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