ACS Data Users Group

I'm looking for a way to find separate numbers for renters and homeowners in calculating the number of low income households, because I know that "household" includes both. Is there any way I can find statistics on the number of renters vs. homeowners by income?

Hi Alex,

Are you working with the PUMS files? If so, you can merge the population file with the housing units file using the serial number (actual variable is called "serialno") and then there's a variable for tenure called "ten" in the PUMS housing units file that has four values for occupied housing units:

b .N/A (GQ/vacant)
1 .Owned with mortgage or loan (include home equity loans)
2 .Owned free and clear
3 .Rented
4 .Occupied without payment of rent

The income will come from the households you have in the population file.

You can find this in the Data Dictionary, and other technical documentation about PUMS here: census.gov/.../documentation.html. The PUMS "ReadME" file has sample SAS code to merge the two files on page 4.

Hope this helps!
-Diana

I've mostly been using ACS data, but I'll look into this, thanks!

The ACS has a table of income by homeownership on American FactFinder. It's table # B25118. You can find other related tables by typing the keyword for homeownership, tenure, into the AFF search box in the yellow bar in the center of the advanced search page and clicking go. Then enter income and hit go and it'll also have links to median household income by tenure and tenure by housing costs as a % of household income among a few others. Most are available on both the 1-year and 5-year ACS.

I found the table, this is helpful!