A drastic under-count by the US Census could cost New York City hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid, local politicians said.
The New York Post reports that city estimates put New York's population at 8.4 million, compared to the census bureau's 8.175 million estimate.
"I'm flabbergasted, I know they made a big, big mistake," said Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, whose borough grew by only 1,300 people since 2000, according to the census.
Mayor Bloomberg shared Markowitz' astonishment.
"We don't quite understand the numbers," he said. "It just doesn't make any sense at all."
The numbers don't account for 170,000 new homes built in New York in the last decade, he said, and they improbably count just 1,300 new residents in Queens since 2000.
"There are not a lot of vacant homes in this city," the mayor said. "In Queens, common sense says we didn't go up by 1,000 people."
The News points out that most of the shortfall comes in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods. That could mean recent immigrants didn't fill out their census forms, or that census takers "were deterred when confronted with illegally-subdivided apartments," according to the News.
The AP reports that update New York actually reported many population dips: "Buffalo lost 10.7 percent of its population, Rochester lost 4.2 percent and Syracuse lost 1.5 percent."
New York City's return rate for the census was 59 percent, an improvement from 2000's 57 percent. Nationally, the return rate was 71 percent.