Which specific federal programs would see the largest dollar decreases for states if noncitizens were excluded from the census?
Executive summary
Excluding noncitizens from the census would shrink the population base that federal formula allocations rely on and therefore reduce funding for many programs that use Census-derived population counts; the most vulnerable line-items, according to available reporting, include nutrition assistance, community development grants, school meal programs and various health and transportation allocations that are explicitly tied to population measures [1] [2]. Precise dollar losses by program or state are not provided in the reporting; estimates depend on each program’s statutory formula and how much a state’s population would be reduced by removing noncitizens [2] [1].
1. SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and nutrition funding—an immediate hit to food aid
Analysts and policy researchers point to SNAP as one of the prominent programs tied to census population figures, and removing noncitizens from counts would reduce the population denominator that helps allocate nutrition and other anti-hunger dollars to states and localities; the Urban Institute lists SNAP among the programs that would see less funding if noncitizens were excluded [1]. The reporting makes clear that hundreds of programs use census data to distribute funds, and SNAP is repeatedly cited as an example of a program whose allocations would shrink if the counted population fell [2] [1].
2. Community Development Block Grants—fewer dollars for local infrastructure and housing
Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) are explicitly named in the reporting as one of the programs that rely on decennial data, meaning that a smaller counted population would lead to reduced allocations for community development, infrastructure and housing projects in affected jurisdictions [1]. Because CDBG formulas are directly informed by population and poverty measures derived from Census and ACS data, a citizens-only count would disproportionately penalize places with larger noncitizen populations [1] [2].
3. National School Lunch and school-related meal programs—less money for feeding children
The National School Lunch Program appears in the Urban Institute summary as another program tied to census-derived counts; excluding noncitizens would lower the population basis for some education-related allocations and could reduce meal-program funding in districts with significant noncitizen populations [1]. The coverage stresses that removing people who actually live and use services would cause program formulas to undercount need relative to on-the-ground demand [2] [1].
4. Health, hospitals and Medicaid-adjacent allocations—pressure on medical and public health services
Reporting underscores that “funding for hospitals or healthcare” and other health-related allocations are driven by population data and would be affected if the count shrank [2]. While the sources do not provide a line-by-line accounting of Medicaid or other specific health program dollar changes, they explicitly state health and hospital funding are among the categories that census-based guidance affects, and therefore would face reductions tied to any exclusion of noncitizens [2] [1].
5. Transportation and roads—less federal aid for real-world wear and tear
Census-derived population measures determine many urban/rural designations and per-capita allocations used in transportation funding; Federal News Network highlights roads as an example of services that don’t discriminate by citizenship but whose federal support is guided by census counts, meaning less counted population produces less road and transit funding for impacted states [2]. The reporting emphasizes that infrastructure needs do not vanish with a change in counting rules, creating a mismatch between dollars and actual service demand [2].
6. Scale and uncertainty: 371 programs and $2.8 trillion in census-guided funds, but dollar losses are formula-specific
The coverage notes that analysts have linked census data to 371 federal assistance programs and that, in 2021, census-based guidance was used to distribute more than $2.8 trillion across hundreds of programs—underscoring the scale of potential impact—yet it also makes clear that exact decreases would vary by statutory formula and by how many noncitizens a state would lose from its tabulation [2] [1]. The reporting does not provide a definitive ranking of dollar losses by program or precise state-by-state dollar figures, so any claim about “largest dollar decreases” must be qualified by formulaic details that are not in these sources [2] [1].
7. Political context and who stands to lose most
Observers warn the proposal to exclude noncitizens is politically charged and has been advanced in legislation and executive directives; proponents emphasize reapportionment and political power, while opponents point to the distributive harm for states with larger immigrant populations—Urban Institute flags Nevada, Texas and Florida as states with higher shares of unauthorized immigrants that could see larger funding cuts under some scenarios [3] [1] [4]. Legal and operational constraints around mid-decade counting and apportionment further complicate what a change would actually mean in practice [4] [5].