Users of census stats discuss population trends

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Educators, medical professionals, planners and employees, from various ASG departments, got a chance to discuss statistics presented by the Department of Commerce (DOC) at a workshop Wednesday.

The numbers presented by the Statistics Division of DOC were mainly from the 2020 Census, and surveys conducted by DOC in conjunction with the US Census Bureau and other data collection efforts.

There was much discussion on the cause of the 10% drop in the territory’s population between 2010 and 2020 from 55,519 to 49,710 respectively.

According to Chief Statistician Meleisea Vai Filiga, students and military personnel studying or serving in the US, but whose home of record is American Samoa, were counted in the states that they were in and the US Census Bureau was supposed to revert those numbers to be included in American Samoa’s census, but that didn’t happen.

He said, there’s a case to be presented to our Congresswoman to right this situation.

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One of the participants, Dr. Annie Fuavai observed that while the population of Manu’a continues to drop, falling from 1,160 in 2010 to 832 in 2020, the government is pouring so much funding into infrastructure and services for the eastern group of islands.

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