Estimating the Size of the Hispanic Population for High-Growth States in Census Off-Years

Melanie Wasserman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In the 1990s, the Hispanic population grew at an unprecedented rate in many states that had not been traditional destinations for Hispanic migrants. While state agencies often acknowledged this growth, Census Bureau projections and estimates dated August 2000 were on average 38% below final census 2000 figures for the ten states with the highest percent Hispanic population growth. The discrepancy between estimates and reality has been a problem for state agencies trying to budget for service provision to their Latino constituencies. Yet, their use of non-census data often prompts critics to dismiss their estimates as politically motivated. This paper tests, for the ten highest percent growth states, a simple, politically neutral method to make annual, state-level estimates of the Hispanic population in census off-years. Using readily available data from state birth records, the CPS, and the census, this method yielded 1999 year-end estimates that were closer to census 2000 figures.