The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, known as the CARES Act, used census counts to dole out aid to communities, including Detroit, to cover COVID-19 expenses. “Congress divided that money proportionally to the state’s population size, so it was more or less a per capita allocation” based on estimates using 2010 census data, said Reynolds Farley, a PSC Reseacher Professor who teaches a class on the history of Detroit and currently serves on two Census Complete Count Committees. “But if they started with a number that was 100,000 too short in 2010, that would carry over….I think it’s about $450 million Michigan would have lost because of undercount.”

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