The 2025 New Newmanton census, released Monday by the Commonwealth Office of Enumeration, recorded a population of 237, down from 53,000 in the previous count. The decline follows the introduction of a revised counting process under which residents wishing to be enumerated must pay a $1,140 processing fee and submit a complete record of their personal data, including biometrics, financial history, location logs, private messages, and what the intake form describes as "any remaining interior information." The roughly 52,763 residents who did not complete the process continue to live on the island, use its roads, and receive its tax bills, but are no longer reflected in federal funding formulas.

The new process was designed and administered by Enumera Holdings, a Delaware-registered data firm awarded the census contract in a no-bid procedure last spring. Under its terms, Enumera retains ownership of all submitted data in perpetuity and may license it to third parties for "training, modeling, and continuity purposes." Because federal allocations for schools, hospitals, sewage, and road maintenance are calculated per counted resident, the commonwealth's projected public services budget for the coming fiscal year has fallen from $412 million to just $872. The Office of Enumeration itself employs 312 people, a figure it has confirmed exceeds the population it serves.

Commonwealth Census Director Paulette Imrie said the results reflected a more accurate picture of the island. "We are no longer counting people who simply happen to be here," Imrie said. "We are counting people who are fully legible. The 237 residents in this census are among the most thoroughly understood human beings in the United States, and the services they receive will be tailored to them with a precision that was never possible when we were spreading resources across 53,000 unknowns." The Department of Public Works confirmed Tuesday that road repair will now be limited to the four streets on which counted residents live, and that the Third Street sinkhole, which is not adjacent to any counted household, has been reclassified as terrain.

A breakdown of the 237 counted residents shows that 61 are employees of Enumera Holdings, 19 are household staff at a single Harbor Road estate, and 14 are deceased residents whose data was already on file and who were enrolled automatically at no charge. Enumera said the deceased would retain their status "for as long as their profiles remain active," and noted that they had produced the cleanest submissions of any respondent group.