US Census

The decennial count of America’s population drastically undercounted the number of people who live in six states, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday, putting at risk billions of dollars in potential federal funding over the next decade.

Most of the states that suffered severe undercounts are in the South: A follow-up survey the bureau conducted after the 2020 count showed Arkansas’s population was undercounted by just over 5 percent, the populations of Mississippi and Tennessee were undercounted by more than 4 percent and Florida’s population came in almost 3.5 percent short.

The census undercounted populations in Texas and Illinois by 1.9 percent, the Bureau said in a press briefing Thursday.

The populations in eight states — Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island and Utah — were overestimated in the decennial count, the Bureau said.

Hawaii’s population was the most overcounted, by nearly 6.8 percent.