Counties With Most Young Children At Risk of Being Missed in the 2020 Census | Part III

Half of all Young Latino Children Living in Very High Risk of Undercount census tracts are located in just 17 counties

On February 5, 2020, the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) released a database identifying the Census tracts in 689 large counties (all the counties with at least 5,000 children under age 5 in the 2010 Census) where young children (age 0 to 4) were most at risk of being missed in the 2020 Census. All the Very High Risk of Undercount tracts had a predicted young child net undercount of 8.2 percent or more based on the most recent data available. The PRB research shows that almost 1.8 million young Latino children live in Very High Risk of Undercount Census tracts. That amounts to 38 percent of all young Latinos.

The table below shows that the1.8 million young Latino children most at risk of being missed in the 2020 Census are clustered in a relatively small number of counties. Half of all young Latino children in the 689 counties living in Very High Risk of Undercount Census tracts are located in 17 counties, and one-quarter are in just 5 counties. Moreover, the 17 counties are located in just six states (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, and Arizona). These locations deserve special attention in terms of reducing the high net undercount of young children in the 2020 census.

You can find more resources below:

  • PRB database
  • This CUNY HTC mapping application gives a more granular look at the census tracts in these counties.
  • This webinar gives more information about the database and using the database in the CUNY HTC mapping system.
  • This paper describes the database and how to use it.

Additional data is available for smaller subgroups of Latinos. PRB has prepared Hard-to-Count profiles for the groups below. National profiles are available as well as state profiles of these groups for California and New Jersey. A blog from Count All Kids provides a more complete description of this data.

Hispanic/Latino subgroups

  • Mexican
  • Salvadoran
  • Guatemalan
  • Puerto Rican
  • Spaniard
  • Nicaraguan
  • Honduran
  • Cuban
  • Peruvian
  • Columbian
  • Other Hispanic

The Hard-to-Count profiles are based on these eight measures.

  • Poverty rate
  • Living with one parent
  • Living in care of grandparent
  • Moved in the past year
  • Living in an apartment/rental housing
  • Living in multi-unit housing
  • Living in a large household (7+ people)
  • Living in a limited-English proficient household

Found this article helpful? Share it!

More resources like this

Project Update: Advancing Strategies for an Accurate Count of Young Children in the 2030 Census

Significant progress has been made in our ongoing efforts to ensure that all young children

The Pervasive Nature of Under-Reporting Young Children in Official Data

As we start to prepare for the dissemination of the 2020 Census data, it is

PRB Resources to Improve the Count of Young Children in the 2020 Census (FINAL October 16 Update)

PRB has produced an updated series of tables and maps identifying neighborhoods with a very