近幾周，特朗普政府備受爭議的“骨肉分離”政策一直是美國的焦點。現在這項政策已經終止。然而一份新的報告從另外一個角度證明了：美國政府忽略了包括一些非法入境兒童在內的孩子們的需求。

上周三，安妮·E·凱西基金會（The Annie E. Casey Foundation）發布了年度《兒童普查數據手冊》，這份報告評估了最有可能無法充分統計兒童人口的地區，其結果表明，5歲以下的美國兒童有近四分之一居住在這些難以開展人口普查的地區。

5歲以下兒童在人口普查中遭遺漏的比例最高，那些最弱勢的孩子更是如此。這很重要，喬治華盛頓公共政策學院（George Washington’s Institute of Public Policy）研究了10年一次的人口普查對聯邦政府資金分配的影響，結果顯示人口普查決定了選票和國會議員的分布情況，也左右著8000多億美元聯邦政府資金的分配。

凱西基金會的報告指出：“如果不把面臨最大障礙的那些孩子計算在內，就等于無視他們以及他們的需求，這會令其前途變得不明朗。”

因此可以說，美國政府最不可能充分體現的就是小孩子的需要。他們在教育和醫療等資源上獲得充足資金的可能性較小。美國各地的弱勢社區中的孩子獲得足夠資源的可能性也最低。

其他年齡段群體被遺漏的比例要低得多。在5歲以下兒童中，人口普查的遺漏比率為二十分之一，排名第二的5-9歲年齡段的遺漏率則為五十分之一。《兒童普查數據手冊》指出，在5歲以下人群中，政府遺漏黑人和拉丁裔兒童的情況是白人兒童的兩倍以上。

2015年，針對幼兒的10大措施一共使用了1600億美元政府撥款。但這些資金不足以覆蓋人口普查遺漏的那些兒童。實際上，喬治華盛頓公共政策學院的研究表明，2015年為五個健康和居民服務項目撥款時，有37個州出現了前一次人口普查每遺漏一人就損失逾1000美元的情況。這五個項目包括醫療補助、兒童醫保、Title IV-E撫養金、Title IV-E領養協助以及兒童照料和發展基金。

In recent weeks, America has been focused on the Trump administration’s controversial—and now ended—policy of separating parents and children at the border. Now, a new report reveals another way in which the needs of children, including some undocumented children, are being ignored by the U.S. government.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) published its an annual KIDS COUNT Data Book, which assesses the regions at the highest risk for undercounting children on last Wednesday. The 2018 report shows that nearly one in four children under the age of five lives in one of these hard-to-count census tracts.

Children younger than five years old—particularly those in the most vulnerable situations—face the highest rates of undercount by the census. That matters because the census determines distribution of electoral votes and representation in Congress and dictates the allocation of more than $800 billion in federal spending, according to a study by George Washington’s Institute of Public Policy on the role of the decennial census is distributing federal funds.

“If we don’t count the kids facing the greatest obstacles, we essentially make them and their needs invisible — and their future uncertain,” the AECF report says.

As a result, the needs of young children are the least likely to be represented fairly in the U.S. government. They are less likely to receive adequate funding for resources like their education and healthcare. And kids in vulnerable communities across the country are the least likely to be given enough resources.

Other age groups are overlooked at much lower rates. The census misses one in 20 children under the age of five, but the second-highest rate is for children five to nine years and the census fails to count one in 50 kids in this group. Within the youngest age group, the government misses Black and Latino children more than twice as often often as their white peers, according to the KIDS COUNT report.

In 2015, ten of the largest programs that provide for young children accounted for a total of $160 billion in government allotments. But these funds are not sufficient to cover the population missed by the Census. In fact, the George Washington study found 37 states lost more than $1,000 per person missed by the last census when funding five Health and Human Services programs in 2015: Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Title IV-E Foster Care, Title IV-E Adoption Assistance, and the Child Care and Development Fund.

基于人口普查結果分配的聯邦兒童項目資金近1600億美元。

這并非新問題：2010年美國人口普查漏掉了近100萬5歲以下的兒童。

但近兩年一直在研究這個問題的人口統計學家比爾·奧黑爾博士在美國人口學會（Population Association of America）作的報告中稱，1980年以來，美國的最低年齡段人口普查工作每況愈下，而在此期間其他年齡段的人口普查準確率卻持續上升。對于最低年齡段的遺漏比例為何遠高于其他年齡段，專家們尚無明確答案，但他們找到了一些引發這個問題的因素。

評估人口普查遺漏兒童的風險時，凱西基金會的報告采用的依據是一些人口指標，比如平均受教育水平、貧困率、住房成本、非英語家庭占比等等，從而使收集幼兒及其家庭的數據變的更加困難。

該基金會負責政策改革和宣傳的副主任勞拉·斯佩爾告訴《財富》雜志，“最需要[資金和資源]的孩子們往往被漏掉了”，原因是有些因素造成弱勢社區的人口統計做的不夠充分。同時，在最有可能被遺漏的家庭中，幼兒的比例都偏高。

Nearly $160 billion in federal spending for children's programs is distributed based on census counts.

This is not a new problem: In 2010, the U.S. Census failed to count nearly one million children younger than five.

But Dr. Bill O’Hare, a demographer who has been studying the topic for the last two years, said in a presentation by the Population Association of America that the problem of counting the youngest Americans has gotten worse with each census since 1980 — during the same period that the accurate enumeration of other age groups has improved. Experts don’t know exactly why the rates of undercounting this age group are so much higher than any other, but they have identified factors that lead to less accurate counts.

The foundation’s report assesses risk of children being missed based on population traits like average education levels, poverty rates, housing costs, share of non-English speaking households, and a variety of other factors that make it more difficult to collect data on small children and their families.

“It’s often the children who need [funding and resources] most that don’t get counted,” Laura Speer, associate director for policy reform and advocacy at AECF, told Fortune, due to the factors that contribute to the undercount of vulnerable communities. And the households most likely to be missed have a disproportionate share of young children.

美國人口調查局已連續六年資金不足，而且從2017年6月起就一直沒有常駐負責人。除此之外，該局人員在開展人口普查并準確記錄美國幼兒數量時還遇到了其他一些障礙，而人口普查結果將左右聯邦、州以及地方層面今后10年的決策。

復雜的家庭結構

由于10年一次的人口普查是按家庭進行，非雙親結構的家庭會讓確保所有兒童得到準確統計變得更加困難。據斯佩爾介紹，“復雜的家庭結構”包括多個家庭共同擁有監護權、在多代同堂環境中長大的兒童以及住房保障情況差或者住房沒有保障的家庭。

兒童貧困率

在凱西基金會的美國各州兒童幸福水平排名中，新墨西哥州位列末席，其兒童貧困率和就業不安全感卻高居榜首，四年級學生的閱讀能力落后，還有讀了四年卻不能畢業的高中生。該州在2020年人口普查中可能遺漏的兒童數量也超過其他地區。在2010年的普查中，反饋率不足75%的普查區占新墨西哥州所有普查區的52%。新墨西哥州屬丹佛人口調查分局管轄。人口調查局網站顯示，這個分局負責的地區包括亞利桑那州、科羅拉多州、堪薩斯州、蒙大拿州、內布拉斯加州、北達科他州、俄克拉荷馬州、南達科他州、得克薩斯州、猶他州以及懷俄明州，目前有11名員工。

丹佛分局拒絕證實這些數字，但建議《財富》雜志詢問人口調查局公共信息辦公室。該辦公室則未對確認相關數字的要求做出回應，也沒有更改網上披露的員工人數。

移民社區和不會說英語的居民

紐約市人口中的移民比例居美國所有城市之首，它所在的紐約州同樣存在挑戰。在這個州，可能得不到完全統計的兒童超過50萬人，占該州兒童總數的43%。2016年，五分之一的紐約州兒童處于貧困狀態。紐約地區人口調查分局的網站顯示，目前該局有7名員工，而他們還管轄著康涅狄格州、緬因州、馬薩諸塞州、新罕布什爾州、新澤西州、波多黎各、羅德島以及佛蒙特州。

然而，就算在統計最準確的地方，比如僅有3%的5歲以下兒童住在困難普查區的愛荷華州，按2010年的反饋率計算，2020年的人口普查仍有可能漏掉7000名幼兒。

斯佩爾指出，政府無法拿出美國弱勢人群的準確數據，這對所有家庭以及美國兒童的幸福來說就是失敗，對美國下一代人未來的健康而言也是失敗。

2020年之前能做些什么？

斯佩爾認為，對于關心此事的居民來說，他們能做的最重要的事就是去找當地政府和州政府，問問他們在向選民宣傳下次人口普查方面做了哪些工作。現在采取措施來提高2020年的幼兒統計準確率還不算晚。

她還說，州和地方政府可以劃撥資金來支持本次人口普查。加州就在這樣做——專家則預計加州的2020年人口普查將遺漏75萬名兒童。這次普查將詢問受訪者的公民身份，而加州政府已就此起訴聯邦政府；同時，加州政府官員正聯手社區負責人為本次人口普查做宣傳，以解決統計不完善問題。

同時，鑒于人口調查局已經就2020年人口普查進行了一些實地測試，再加上本次普查將首次以數字問卷為主要調查方式，上述措施就更為重要。目前還沒有用含有公民身份問題的問卷進行過測試，但專家認為這將使非美國公民群體的反饋率下降。凱文基金會的報告指出，在美國，有600萬擁有美國公民身份的兒童生活在至少有一名非法入境者的家庭里，因此詢問公民身份不利于準確統計幼兒的數量。

斯佩爾強調，要提高弱勢地區的反饋率并給予家庭支持以便他們過上好日子，關鍵就在于和受信任的地方官員以及教師、醫療工作者、工會領導人和牧師等社區成員建立聯系。

她說：“現在，很多社區都對政府的作用感到更害怕。我們擔心這會影響人們填寫人口普查問卷的意愿。所以說這一點非常重要。”

肯尼斯·普魯伊特曾在1998-2001年擔任人口調查局負責人，他認為應在隱私和準確性之間求得平衡。普魯伊特告訴網絡媒體FiveThirtyEight，人們認為涉及隱私的信息越多，普查結果就越不準確。

安娜·瑪利亞·巴里-杰斯特在FiveThirtyEight網站上寫道：“普魯伊特說這和2020年人口普查緊密相關，威脅到這次普查的不光是那個公民身份問題。一場關于移民的全國性政治辯論以及為了去掉這個問題的多場官司把這次普查困在中間，由此產生的分化可能會對反饋率產生不利影響。”

斯佩爾指出：“歸根到底，問題就在于所有人都有權被納入人口普查范圍內。”她說美國一直在進步，但也承認仍有很大的改善空間。

“這次人口普查可能威脅到我們已經取得的一些進展。”（財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

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Beyond the fact that the Census Bureau’s budget has been underfunded for the last six years and that it has operated without a permanent director since June 2017, here are a few of the obstacles facing the employees that administer the survey—the results of which will determine decisions from federal to state to local levels for the next ten years—as they attempt to accurately count the young child population in the country:

Complex family living arrangements

Since the 10-year Census is designed to be administered by household, living arrangements outside of a two-parent home make it more challenging to ensure all children have been counted accurately. “Complex living arrangements” can include families who share custody, children being raised by extended family, and households with low or no housing security, according to Speer.

Child poverty rates

New Mexico came last in the AECF’s state ranking of children’s wellbeing, with the highest levels of child poverty, job insecurity, fourth graders behind in reading skills, and high school students failing to graduate in four years. New Mexico also has the the highest population of children at risk to be missed in 2020, with 52% of census tracts returning less than three-quarters of the surveys sent out in 2010, falls into jurisdiction of the Denver regional census branch. This office is responsible for Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming and currently has 11 employees, according to the region’s website.

The Denver Office refused to verify those figures, instead referring Fortune to Public Information Office at the Census Bureau. The PIO did not respond to requests to confirm or correct the staff numbers listed online.

Immigrant communities and non-english speakers

In New York, home to the U.S. city with the highest percentage of immigrant residents, faces challenges as well. More than half a million kids in the state—or 43%—live in census blocks at risk of being undercounted and one in five kids lived in poverty in 2016. The New York regional census office currently employs seven people, according to their website. This staff is also responsible for Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

But even in the best case scenarios for accurate counts, like in Iowa where only 3% of children under age five live in hard-to-count zones, the Census still risks missing 7,000 young children in 2020, based on the response rates in 2010.

The government’s failure to accurately represent and provide for the very most vulnerable populations in this country is a failure for all families, for the wellbeing of American children and subsequently for the future health of the nation’s next generation, explains Speer.

What can be done before 2020?

Speer notes that the most important thing concerned citizens can do is reach out to their local and state governments to ask what they are doing to inform their constituents about the upcoming census. It’s not too late to take steps toward improving the accuracy of counting young children in 2020.

State and local governments can allocate funds to support the census, Speer says. She points to the efforts in California, where experts predict 750,000 children will be missed by the census in 2020. State officials are suing the federal government over the inclusion of the citizenship question and are working with community leaders to share information about the upcoming census in efforts to combat the undercount.

And it’s especially important now, since the census bureau has already conducted some field tests of the 2020 survey, which will be the first Census distributed mainly digitally. No test run of the questionnaire including the citizenship question has been deployed so far, but experts believe it will cause noncitizen response rates to drop. The KIDS COUNT report points out that this is detrimental to accurately capturing the populations of young children when 6 million citizen children in the U.S. live in households where at least one person is undocumented.

Speer emphasized that connecting with trusted local officials and community members like teachers, healthcare providers, union leaders, and clergy, is key to improving response rates in vulnerable areas and giving families the support they need to excel.

“In this moment there’s an increased sense of fear across the communities around the role of government,” she said, “and we’re afraid that’s going to impact the likelihood of people wanting to fill out the census form. So it’s very important.”

There’s a tradeoff between privacy and accuracy, said former census director Kenneth Prewitt, who led the bureau from 1998 to 2001. The more infringement there is on information that people view as private, the less accurate the results will be, he told FiveThirtyEight.

“And this close to the 2020 survey, it’s likely not only the citizenship question that puts the census at risk, Prewitt said. That the census is now mired in a national political conversation about immigration, as well as various court cases pushing to keep the question off the survey polarizes it in a way that could hurt response rates,” Anna Maria Barry-Jester writes for the website.

“In the end it’s about all people having the right to be counted and represented,” Speer said. She says there’s been progress in the country but acknowledges that there is still a lot of room for improvement.

“And this census could jeopardize some of the progress that we’ve made.”