by Valorie H. Rice

Senior Specialist, Business Information

There are many reasons to answer the 2020 Census coming up this April. The first reason is that law requires it (answering the Census is mandatory). A second reason is representation. Arizona has steadily gained congressional districts over the last few decades based on Census counts. A third reason is that a complete count helps plan for infrastructure and public services needs over the next decade. Another very important reason is that an accurate count for our state means money.

A great deal of federal funding allocated to states is based on demographic information from the Census Bureau. A recent study from George Washington University indicates that more than three hundred federal spending programs used data from the last decennial Census in 2010 to distribute over $1.5 trillion to state and local governments, nonprofits, businesses and households across the country during fiscal year 2017.

Earlier work from the same researcher compared funding allocations for fiscal year 2016 from 55 large federal spending programs that used Census 2010 counts to direct spending, including distribution of funds by state. Based on this analysis, Arizona received $20.5 billion in federal funding during fiscal year 2016.

The 55 federal spending programs analyzed are wide ranging, from education funding (Title I grants as well as student loans) to transportation to housing and urban development (section 8 housing and community block grants) to health and social services (Medicare, SNAP, WIC, school lunch programs) to business loans and even rural electrification and cooperative extension programs.

To learn more about the distribution of federal funds dependent on Census results, we recommend: Counting for Dollars 2020: The Role of the Decennial Census in the Geographic Distribution of Federal Funds; there is also a section devoted to detail on funds allocated for Arizona.