Federal Funds on the Line as Cities Challenge Census Results

Tighter budgets, and the threat of losing federal funds, have prompted local governments to challenge 2010 Census results, reports Associated Press' Hope Yen.

"If Houston were to successfully challenge its count as missing 158,475 people based on census estimates released in 2009, Texas could get roughly $948 per person more in Medicaid money, or more than $150 million a year."

"Real-estate agents in New York City want to know where the Census Bureau found vast stretches of empty housing that resulted in a tally that was 200,000 fewer people than expected. Miami officials are puzzled over a count that fell 30,000 below the bureau's 2009 estimate, contending that immigrants and middle-class whites in gated downtown condominiums were missed."

"But the kinds of challenges that are accepted are limited to narrow cases involving outdated boundary lines, people allocated to the wrong neighborhoods or other processing errors that can be fixed without collecting new data."