Detroit mayor calls US Census Bureau "most incompetent division in the entire federal government"
(CBS DETROIT) - Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is calling out the U.S. Census Bureau for claims of inaccurate reporting.
The mayor says the numbers don't add up with postal and utility data.
"You've got DTE saying there's been 5,000 more houses in Detroit that have electricity and gas," Duggan said.
"The postal services say we're delivering mail to 6,000 more houses. We've got 25 housing projects being built around the city because people are moving in so quickly and these guys say we lost 8,000 people last year and 7,000 the year before. It makes no sense."
Duggan was not shy about his views of the latest findings released by the U.S. Census during a press conference.
"I have no idea what city the Census Bureau is looking at and I'm serious about this, the Census Bureau is the most incompetent division in the entire federal government," Duggan said.
The estimates show Detroit saw a 2% population decline last year.
"Our best guess is that the 2,500 to 3,000 that are vacant that we demolished, they must be counting those as being removed from population," Duggan said.
"We have no other theory on how they're reaching these numbers."
Last year, the city sued the Census Bureau for its 2020 findings.
The lawsuit claims the estimates shorted Detroit's population by tens of thousands, despite data sources that show a population increase.
"The Census Director Robert Santos came out and said in America we missed three percent of the African American residents, five percent of our Latino residents, which is just what he admitted they screwed up, is when they missed 20,000 people in Detroit," Duggan said.
At the city's height in 1950, Detroit was the fifth largest city in the country with almost 1.9 million residents.
According to the Census, Detroit now ranks 29th with roughly 620,000 residents.
"So, I'd assume they'd add the 20,000 back in," Duggan said.
"He admitted they messed up. Nope, we missed them. We're not going to count these folks for the next decade. I mean, who runs a ship like that? So, we're going to keep fighting until Detroiters are counted. That's all we want is an honest count."