Politics

2010 Census data released: Texas gains seats, New York and Ohio lose seats

Alexis Levinson Political Reporter
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Texas will gain four seats in the House of Representatives, while Ohio and New York will each lose two, according to the results of the 2010 Census, released Tuesday morning.

The population of the United States currently stands at 308,745,538 persons, “a growth of 9.7 percent over the official population count of 2000,” said Robert Groves, Director of the U.S. census.

Nevada had the largest population gains, of 35.1 percent, and Michigan was the one state to lose 0.6 percent of its population. This reflects the trend of movement to the South and West, that the Census showed to be continuing.

The five states with the highest population density are New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maryland, remained the same, as did the states with the lowest population density: Alabama, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The Census documented both citizens and non-citizens, and the questionnaire did not ask about citizenship.

“We count residents, whether they are citizens or not,” said Groves in the question and answer period.

The census was “completed on time and under budget” by $1.87 billion, a fact which Commerce Department Secretary Gary Locke emphasized multiple times, before turning it over to Groves to release the data.

This is the 23rd decennial census.