Aurora lost another 1.47% of its population between 2020 and 2022, according to new U.S. Census Bureau figures released recently.
The numbers from the bureau’s Population Estimates Program now show the city with a population of 177,866 as of July 2022. That is 2,660 people down from the 180,197 people the Census Bureau put Aurora at after the decennial census in 2020.
Aurora officials had no official comment on the new numbers, but the city has been disputing the decennial census results that dropped the city’s population from about 197,000 in 2010 to the 180,197 in 2020.
Alex Alexandrou, the city’s chief management officer, said the city’s census team would be discussing the latest numbers “and then I’ll be in a better position to respond with a statement.”
The city’s team includes Rob Paral, senior research specialist at the Great Cities Institute of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who did the original demographic study of the city’s 2020 results.
Aurora officials might be skeptical of these latest results because they are still questioning the 2020 census figures.
Earlier this month, in passing about a $4.4 million amendment to the 2023 budget, the City Council included $800,000 toward ordering a special census to take place between February and May 2024.
The city also is holding out for a possible second special census later that year, in case the first does not capture new development, according to Alexandrou.
Aurora was one of the first cities in line to request a special census. The Census Bureau window for the request opened March 30, and the city made its request on March 31.
The Census Bureau said after the 2020 decennial census that Aurora’s population was down about 17,000 compared to 2010. Aurora officials and its census consultants said that the declared population was too low, and that the city could not have lost that many residents.
Paral himself said back in 2021 that the Census Bureau numbers made Aurora an “outlier” when compared to the rest of the region.
He said the Census Bureau’s own estimated numbers before the 2020 count – from the same Populations Estimate Program that brought forth the latest numbers a few days ago – showed that Aurora might have lost a small percentage of its 197,000 population, but was relatively stable through the past 10 years. In 2020, the Population Estimates Program had estimated 196,383 residents in Aurora.
Paral said at the time, in 2021, that the 2020 numbers did not match enrollment figures in the city’s four major school districts, and that the decline in the largest census tracts with at least 70% Latino population in Aurora were greater than similar tracts in Elgin and Waukegan.
Aurora also had areas with some of the lowest response rates to the census during the initial count, according to Paral.
Alexandrou said a month ago there are parts of the city where the Census Bureau missed housing units, and the city has identified those.
While Aurora is looking at the special census for 2024, it also plans to submit a Count Question Resolution by the deadline in June.
The reason the population count is important to Aurora is not just about accuracy, but about revenue to the city.
Officials have estimated the population loss as depicted in the 2020 census results would cost Aurora about $3.6 million a year – or about $36 million during the next 10 years – in lost revenue from different tax and federal program allocations, such as motor fuel and sales taxes, and Community Development Block Grant funds.
The most recent numbers for Aurora come from the Population Estimates Program. According to the Census Bureau website, the bureau estimates the resident population each year based on a formula that adds births, subtracts deaths and then adds migration rates.
For migration rates, the bureau consults Internal Revenue Service tax return data for ages up to 64, Medicare enrollment for ages 65 and older, the Social Security Administration’s Numerical Identification File for all ages, and changes in the Group Quarters population, which looks at such things as military enrollment.
The recent Census Bureau numbers showed Illinois lost more than 230,000 people, or about 1.8% of its population, with much of that coming in the Chicago metropolitan area.
That area covers 14 counties, including Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Will, McHenry and Lake, and extending into Wisconsin and Indiana.
