Money: Why the Census Matters to Indiana
Congress uses census data to allocate funds under various federal grant programs to state governments. Many state-funded grant programs also rely on census data. Because the annual population estimates use the decennial census counts as a base, if a community's population is undercounted in the decennial census, these funds get misallocated for an entire decade.
What is a person worth?
The federal govenment relied on Census data to provide over $17.9 billion in funding to Indiana for fiscal year 2016 from the 55 largest federal spending programs. Although each program's funding formula is complex (and in most cases unique), Indiana's $17.9 billion in funding roughly equates to $2,710 per person each year.
For more details, see the Indiana Fact Sheet and the Counting for Dollars project page at the George Washington Institute of Public Policy.
State-level funding
Of course, federal funding is just part of the picture. Many state agencies distribute funds to local areas based on local population counts:
- Gaming revenue
- Cigarette tax fund
- Excise tax revenue
- Local road and street accounts
- Rural development fund
- Motor vehicle highway account fund
- Distribution of money from the Indiana library and historical board to eligible public library districts
- Evaluation of enterprise zone applications
- Establishing priorities for community residential facilities
- Issuance of permits by the alcohol and tobacco commission
Additional information
George Washington Institute of Public Policy
U.S. General Accounting Office
- Formula Grants: Funding for the Largest Federal Assistance Programs Is Based on Census-Related Data and Other Factors
- Formula Grants: Census Data Are among Several Factors That Can Affect Funding Allocations