The House on Thursday added $500,000 to a new program Thursday designed to help the state accurately count its residents as part of the 2020 Census, an investment that Rep. Michael Moran described as necessary in light of diminished federal resources for the decennial population count.
Moran spoke in support of an amendment that boosted the new Complete Count program budget to $2.5 million. The competitive grant program will be administered by Secretary of State William Galvin, and will be particularly critical for communities in the western half of the state, he said.
Moran, a Boston Democrat who led the House’s redistricting effort after the last Census, said that level funding from the federal government will leave the U.S. Census bureau with just six regional offices in Massachusetts for the count, and no offices west of Worcester. There were 12 regional offices in 2010, he said.
“The United States constitution calls for us to count every living person in the state. Not just rich or poor, immigrant or native born, but everybody,” Moran said.
The U.S. Census is used to determine not just the number of seats Massachusetts has in Congress, but also its share of federal, per-capita funding. Moran said the state receives about $16 billion in federal funds each year tied to health care housing, food and nutrition programs.