Random Samplings

2011 American Community Survey Estimates Tell Us about our Communities

Posted on September 20, 2012 by jennifer

Written by: James B. Treat

Do you want to know more about statistics for your local community, such as educational attainment, how many people have health insurance, poverty rates or commute times? Have you ever wondered what the median income is for your state? How about how it compares with other states?

The Census Bureau released estimates from the 2011 American Community Survey (ACS) today, which is distinguished from all other surveys for its ability to produce annual statistics on housing, economic and population measures for even the smallest geographic areas and population groups. Census survey questions have collected information on the demographic characteristics of the nation’s population since the first census was conducted under the direction of Thomas Jefferson in 1790.

The ACS is used by everyone from retailers, homebuilders and police departments to town and city planners to make decisions about their communities, such as where to locate a school or firehouse. Business owners also rely on the ACS to plan and expand into new products or communities.

So what does this latest ACS release tell us?

In 2011, median household income for the U.S. was $50,502, with ranges from $36,919 (Mississippi) to $70,004 (Maryland). While there was a decline in median household income in 18 states, the estimates show that for 32 states and the District of Columbia, the median household income between 2010 and 2011 was virtually unchanged. You can read more about income in a report released today.

Also released today were two additional short reports supplementing detailed tables with additional analysis on poverty and health insurance. Highlights regarding income and poverty from today’s release include:

Between 2010 and 2011, Vermont was the only state that showed an increase in median household income. The state median decreases ranged from 1.1 percent in Ohio to 6.0 percent in Nevada.
Among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, New Hampshire (8.8 percent) had the lowest poverty rate, and Mississippi (22.6 percent) had one of the highest poverty rates.
The number and percentage of people in poverty increased in 17 states between 2010 and 2011. For 10 states, this was the third consecutive annual increase.

Do you want to know more about your local community?

Today’s release of ACS one-year estimates are available in detailed tables for the nation, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, every congressional district, every metropolitan area, and all counties and places with populations of 65,000 or more. Over the next few months, the Census Bureau will also release three-year and five-year estimates that will include small area estimates for the more than 40 topics the survey covers. These topics are wide-ranging, including subjects such as educational attainment, income, occupation, language spoken at home, nativity, ancestry, and selected monthly homeowner costs.

If you would like to learn more about your hometown or local area, you can explore statistics using American FactFinder .

For additional information regarding the ACS estimates, please visit www.census.gov/acs. If you have questions, you may also email acso.users.spport@census.gov or call 301-763-1405.

Posted in Data Tools, Health Care, Income, Poverty | Tagged ACS, American Community Survey | 1 Comment

Uninsured Rate for Young Adults Drops Sharply

Posted on September 12, 2012 by jennifer

Written by: Brett O’Hara

Every year, the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey asks respondents whether they had any health insurance coverage during the previous calendar year. Collected since 1987, these statistics are the longest series that measure health insurance coverage for our nation.

Today, we released statistics pertaining to the 2011 calendar year. Segmented by a range of demographic characteristics, they show that 17.9 percent of people under age 65 were uninsured in 2011. That overall percentage, however, masks a great deal of variation among age groups.

Traditionally, the likelihood of being without health insurance coverage declines with age for adults. According to these just-released numbers, this pattern has changed a bit, however.

Because they are less likely to be in the labor force, young adults between 19 and 25 years old have traditionally been more likely than other adults to lack health insurance. However, in 2010, their rate began coming down (1.6 percentage points). And in 2011, their rate declined even more ─ by 2.2 percentage points to 27.7 percent. Their rate has declined so much during the last couple of years that by 2011, it was not statistically different from that of the next oldest age group: 26- to 34-year-olds. Partly, this pattern is attributable to more young adults being covered under their parents’ plan.

The decline in the uninsured for this youngest group of adults was much steeper than the decline for the population as a whole, which was 0.6 percentage points. Furthermore, for two other groups of working-age adults (those 26 to 34, and 45 to 64), there was no drop at all.

To access the Census Bureau’s health insurance statistics, visit < http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/hlthins.html>.

Posted in Health Care | Tagged Health Insurance | 1 Comment

2011 Poverty – Stories Behind the Numbers

Posted on September 12, 2012 by jennifer

Written by: Trudi Renwick

In 2011, 15.0 percent of the population had income below the official poverty thresholds. Between 2010 and 2011 there was no statistically significant change in the percent or number of people in poverty in the United States. This was the first time in four years that the poverty rate did not go up. End of story? Well, not quite. We can look beyond these broadest poverty estimates to understand some important things happening in the economy.

There were three major demographic groups for whom both the poverty rate and the number of people in poverty decreased. In the South, the number of poor people went down by 743,000 and the poverty rate declined by .8 percentage points. The number of people in poverty in the suburbs fell by 739,000 and the suburban poverty rate fell from 11.9 percent to 11.3 percent. The number of noncitizens in poverty also decreased by 551,000 and their poverty rate fell from 26.8 percent to 24.3 percent. There were also statistically significant declines in the poverty rates for men and Hispanics. (Since the total number of people in each of these groups grew, the drop in these poverty rates did not result in fewer men or Hispanics in poverty.)

Poverty was flat for almost every other major group we measure. The only statistically significant increase in poverty was for naturalized citizens. Their poverty rate went up by 1.2 percentage points.

What factors were pushing the poverty rates down for these groups? Increases in the number of people working full-time year-round go a long way in explaining the drops in poverty. The number of people reporting full-time year-round employment increased by 1.2 million in the South and by 1.5 million in the suburbs. There were 411,000 more noncitizens working full-time year-round in 2011 than in 2010. Of the 2.2 million additional people working full-time year-round, 1.7 million were men and 959,000 were Hispanic. While Hispanics make up about 15 percent of the working age population, they accounted for more than 40 percent of the increase in full-time year-round employment.

Looking at the entire nonelderly adult population (those between the ages of 18 and 64), there were no statistically significant changes in the number of people in poverty or the poverty rates. The change for this group was in the distribution of workers between full-time, year-round and less than full-time, year-round. The overall number of workers grew by a modest 476,000 but the number of full-time, year-round workers grew by 1.7 million. The number of less than full-time, year-round workers shrank by 1.3 million. All things equal, more full-time year-round workers means lower poverty.

We also see some evidence that the public safety net lowers poverty rates. As in past years, Social Security was by far the most important anti-poverty program. Social security benefits kept the cash income of more than 20 million individuals over the poverty threshold. Unemployment insurance kept another 2 million people out of poverty.

For more information, see the report at http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf.

Posted in Poverty | Tagged Employment, poverty | Leave a comment

A Deeper Look at the Income Estimates

Posted on September 12, 2012 by jennifer

Written by: Ed Welniak

For the second consecutive year, household income declined. Between 2010 and 2011, real (inflation adjusted) median household income fell by 1.5 percent, and the median has declined by a total of 8.1 percent since 2007. Income is 8.9 percent lower than its 1999 peak.

These results, however, were not uniform across all groups. Asian households and Hispanic-origin households showed no change in income between 2010 and 2011, as did nonfamily households, households in the Northeast, Midwest and South, and households outside principal cities and metro areas.

What may be holding household income down? One contributing factor may be the increase of typically lower-income households. For example, between 2011 and 2012, the number of elderly households grew by 1.1 million to 26.8 million households, a 4.3 percent increase. Since the median income of elderly households is much lower than the median of nonelderly households, the growing number of elderly households will tend to lower overall median household income over time.

Earnings were also down between 2010 and 2011, though the number of workers with earnings increased by nearly 1 million. Real earnings of year-round, full-time workers declined by 2.5 percent for both men and women between 2010 and 2011. This decline was coupled with an increase in the number of year-round, full-time workers of 1.7 million men and 0.5 million women.

To access the Census Bureau’s income statistics, visit <http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/index.html>.

Posted in Income | Tagged income | 1 Comment

How We Measure Poverty and Income

Posted on September 6, 2012 by jennifer

Written by: David Johnson

Income, poverty and health insurance estimates for 2011 from the Current Population Survey (CPS) will be released Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. One-year estimates from the 2011 American Community Survey (ACS) will be released on Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012.

In all likelihood, the national estimates from these two sources will not be identical. Why not? Which is correct? Well, it’s complicated.

The Current Population Survey serves as the nation’s primary source of statistics on labor force characteristics. A supplement to the survey provides the official annual statistics on the nation’s income and poverty levels as well as statistics on age, sex, race, marital status, educational attainment, employee benefits, work schedules, school enrollment, health insurance, noncash benefits and migration.

The American Community Survey, on the other hand, is the only source of small-area estimates available on a wide range of important social and economic characteristics for all communities in the country. In addition to income, poverty and health insurance, these topics include education, language ability, the foreign-born, marital status, migration, homeownership, the cost and value of our homes and many more.

Estimates from these two surveys differ for a number of reasons. First, income questions on the CPS are much more detailed than the summary questions asked on the ACS.

Second, the reference periods for the two surveys are very different. The CPS asks respondents to report on their income in the previous calendar year. The ACS asks about income in the prior 12 months. Since the ACS is a continuous survey administered throughout the year, some respondents to the 2011 ACS (those who fill out the survey in January) are reporting income received between January 2010 and December 2010 while other respondents (those who fill out the survey in December) are reporting income received between December 2010 and November 2011.

Third, for the CPS, trained interviewers sit down with respondents to complete the questionnaire while the ACS is primarily a self-reporting mail-back survey. (Trained interviewers follow-up with households who do not respond to the ACS by mail.)

These differences often result in different national estimates for such key indicators as poverty, median income and inequality. Despite these differences in the “levels” of these indicators, the trends over time tend to be very similar across the two surveys. The following graph shows poverty rates from the ACS compared with poverty rates from the CPS for previous years. The red line adjusts for the differences in reference periods.

Many people contact us each year asking how to know which estimate to use for a particular purpose. For national estimates, we recommend the CPS because it provides a consistent historical time series at the national level and can also be used to look at limited state-level trends. However, because of the larger sample size and smaller sampling errors we recommend using the ACS for subnational geographies.