By TRAVIS CRUM
The Herald-Dispatch
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Continued losses in West Virginia’s population heading into the 2020 census threaten one of the state’s seats in Congress and could cut into the nearly $7 billion in federal funding the state now receives each year.
Exacerbating the problem is the potential for an undercount as more than 24% of West Virginians are considered to be living in hard-to-count communities. Meanwhile, the census is moving primarily online for the first time when an estimated quarter of the state’s population has little-to-no internet access.
Nonprofit groups said these are significant challenges to ensure a complete census count in a state that has seen deaths outweighing births within the past year and more people moving out of the state than the number moving in.
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