Governor Andrew Cuomo is announcing that $10 million more dollars will be in his new state budget to help with the 2020 national census and to make sure that as many New Yorkers as possible are counted.
Cuomo says the additional money will be used to target traditionally hard to count populations, including immigrants. The governor says they may be wary of a federal government led by President Donald Trump, that Cuomo says has been “antagonistic” toward those born in other countries.
“We literally have to knock on doors, call people’s homes,” Cuomo said. “Let them understand what the census is.”
He says older adults might also be undercounted, because the census is supposed to be done on line this year, and many elderly are not computer savvy.
The census numbers determine everything from the number of congressional representatives a state has , to funding for numerous programs.
The state plans to spend a total of $70 million dollars on the census count this year.