ACS Data Users Group

Hi,

I am trying to identify a table listing the number of households at and below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level.

I need this for counties, so an ACS table would be preferable.

Sorry if this is too obvious.

TIA

B17026 RATIO OF INCOME TO POVERTY LEVEL OF FAMILIES IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS

...but that's families, not households. I don't know if this is available by household.

Thanks Glenn,

I'll see if this makes sense.

Cheers

AB

Hi Adam - Just out of curiosity, are you looking to estimate eligibility for the Affordable Connectivity Program? I ask because 200% of the FPL is the guideline for eligibility and that's something I've been working on lately. Let me know if you'd like to chat about it sometime.

Christine

Dear Adam,

To comment on Glenn's comment. I've just been through a round with the people at the Census on reconciling "below poverty" from the PUMS with "below poverty" for table B17001. Poverty is not defined for households only for families which includes only people in the household who are related to the "head of household." For example a renter not related to the family is not included in the calculation and is not part of the "universe." For the calculation with partial details see: https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty/guidance/poverty-measures.html. You add up the income for all family members and then apply the formula which is based on total family income, number of family members and number of children. Here is the email that I just received from the people at the Census: (regarding matching numbers from B17001 and the calculation using the PUMS variables POVPIP RELSHIPP TYPEHUGQ AGEP.

How can I get children age 18 below percent by race in a county, say Palm beach county Florida.

PL94 data would have that for 2020. Download at https://www.nhgis.org

Dear Jin,

Table S1702 (ACS 5 year vintage 2021) has household at various poverty "levels" (including 200%) at the county geography.

Dave

Oh this is about poverty! Never mind

Dear Tim and Jin,

I knew that 200% poverty level was somewhere because I've used it. I looked in the 2020 PL-94-171 and was scratching my head.

The early parts of this thread were about how to get 200% poverty level at the tract geo. In which case I used a Small Area Estimation (SAE) synthetic estimate (like indirect adjustment AGExSEXxRACExPOVERTY_LEVEL) based on the PUMS data for the PUMA that contains the tract being the "large area" Age x Sex x Race from the B01001 series tables at the tract level.

But in this case S1702 exists for counties so you don't need to do any "twists and turns" to get a number. S1702 also exists at the "Place" CSD (county subdivision) for some of the larger CSDs.

Dave

A few more items,

The ACS 2021 5 year tables do go down to the tract level. The 2021 1 year ACS is as above (county some CSDs) So you don't need SAE for tracts if you use 5 year ACS data. S1702 has

50, 100, 125, 150. 185, 200., 300, 400,500 percent of poverty for "families" Not sure how that is different from households.

Dave

I looked up household and family.

Here is how it works. The ACS surveys housing units. Each housing unit has a householder. The family consists of only people who are related to the householder. So families are smaller (or equal to) households. You need to look at the ACS survey form. For poverty level you make the calculation for only the family part of the household. You take the total family income and then look up the poverty level for the number of people and number of children in the family. The table does not depend on where you are in the country. www.census.gov/.../historical-poverty-thresholds.html

There is a person 1 (the householder ?) on the survey form. The question is:

Person 1 is the person living or staying here in whose
name this house or apartment is owned, being bought,
or rented. If there is no such person, start with the name
of any adult living or staying here.

Dave