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American Community Survey Statistics Give Communities Detailed Look at Income, Poverty, Health Insurance and Many other Statistics

Posted on September 19, 2013 by jennifer

Written by: James B. Treat

The American Community Survey statistics released today provide information for geographies with populations of 65,000 or more on many different topics, including income, poverty and health insurance. While national level statistics on these topics were released earlier this week from the Current Population Survey , many states and communities also rely on getting this information from the American Community Survey.

These ACS statistics that cover 2012 will be followed by new releases of statistics from data collected over three- and five-year periods later this year, allowing you to explore these topics for every community in the nation.

As the nation’s most comprehensive survey, the American Community Survey is unique in its ability to produce annual statistics on housing, economic and population measures for even the smallest geographic areas and population groups.? With today’s release, you can find statistics on a variety of topics including commute times, housing costs, educational attainment and characteristics of veterans.

Retailers, homebuilders, police departments, and town and city planners are among the many private- and public-sector decision makers who count on these annual results.

Looking at income, poverty and health insurance statistics provided by the American Community Survey helps communities measure their economic well-being as well as plan resource needs, such as allocating funds for food, health care, job training, housing and other assistance programs.? For more information on the American Community Survey please visit census.gov/acs .

You can read more about income , poverty and health insurance at the state and local level in the American Community Survey briefs released today. Here are a few highlights:

??Between 2011 and 2012, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts and Oregon were the only states that showed an increase in real median household income.

??Missouri and Virginia were the only states where median household income decreased from 2011 to 2012.

??The number and percentage of people in poverty did not have a statistically significant change in 43 states and the District of Columbia between 2011 and 2012, while in three states (California, Mississippi and New Hampshire) the number and percentage of people in poverty increased.

??For 2012, states with the lowest poverty rates included New Hampshire (10.0 percent), Alaska (10.1 percent), Maryland (10.3 percent), Connecticut (10.7 percent) and New Jersey (10.8 percent). Not all of these states are statistically different from one another. States with the highest poverty rates for 2012 included Mississippi (24.2 percent), New Mexico (20.8 percent), Louisiana (19.9 percent), Arkansas (19.8 percent) and Kentucky (19.4 percent). Louisiana, Arkansas and Kentucky are not statistically different from one another.

??Of the 25 most populated metro areas, the Minneapolis metro area was the only one that had a statistically significant increase in private health insurance coverage for individuals under 65 from 2010 to 2012, going from 74.4 percent to 75.5 percent.

For more information, please see the news release and briefs on income, poverty and health insurance coverage.

Posted in Health Care , Income , Poverty | Tagged American Community Survey | Leave a comment

Medicare and Medicaid, Age and Income

Posted on September 17, 2013 by jennifer

Written by: Jennifer Cheeseman Day

Today, the Census Bureau released new statistics on the percentages of people receiving health insurance coverage. The report shows that 15.7 percent of people were covered by Medicare and 16.4 percent by Medicaid last year.

Medicare and Medicaid are often confused. In general, Medicare is health insurance coverage for people 65 and older, or for people under 65 with disabilities; whereas, Medicaid is health insurance coverage for low-income people.

When the Census Bureau started measuring participation in these two programs with the Current Population Survey in 1987, the percentage of people with Medicare outnumbered the percentage with Medicaid.? However, since the economic downturn, more people have relied on Medicaid for their health insurance, for the fourth year in a row, than for Medicare.

Yet, this trend masks a great deal of variation between race and Hispanic origin groups.? As the figures show, the non-Hispanic white population is the only group that participates more in Medicare than Medicaid.? Given that to be eligible for Medicare, participants must be 65 and older, one of the biggest reasons for this is the different age distributions among these groups, and the non-Hispanic white population is much older than the other groups. For instance, in 2012, 17 percent of non-Hispanic whites were 65 and older compared with 10 percent of blacks, 10 percent of Asians and 6 percent of Hispanics. Moreover, with the large non-Hispanic white baby-boom population now starting to enter the Medicare-eligible age group, higher Medicare coverage rates for non-Hispanic whites will continue for some time.

At the same time, disparities in income levels among the race and Hispanic origin groups reveal different rates of Medicaid eligibility. In 2012, 10 percent of non-Hispanic whites were in poverty compared with 27 percent of blacks, 12 percent of Asians and 26 percent of Hispanics.? Medicaid health insurance coverage rates may increase in the future due to changes in public policy that extend coverage to those in higher income groups.

To see more about the Census Bureau statistics on health insurance, click here .

Posted in Health Care | Tagged Current Population Survey | 1 Comment

Income and Poverty Rate Held Steady in 2012

Posted on September 17, 2013 by jennifer

Written by: Chuck Nelson

Between 2011 and 2012 in the United States, neither real median income nor the poverty rate changed. For the previous four years (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011) either poverty increased (2008, 2009, 2010) or median household income decreased (2008, 2010, 2011).

Median Income and Poverty rate, 1967 to 2012

Blue bars denote recession periods

As you can see from these charts, when poverty goes up, median income historically tends to go down. Some years the change for one estimate is statistically significant while the change for the other is not. It’s also noteworthy that for the first time since 1992, the year-to-year changes for both estimates were not statistically significant ─ in other words, not enough to be considered a real change.

So while we are not seeing income increase and poverty fall, we are not seeing the opposite either.

The lack of change between 2011 and 2012 was widespread for both income and poverty across demographic groups, geographic regions and other characteristics.? Likewise, most earnings estimates were flat across the two years and there was no change in the female-to-male earnings ratio.?? Most measures of income inequality were the same in 2012 as in 2011.

One area with a positive change was in the number of workers.? There were 2.7 million more people with earnings in 2012 than in 2011. One million more men reported full-time, year-round work in 2012 than in 2011. The change in the number of women working full time, year- round was not statistically significant.

The findings show that our nation has not yet recovered to its prerecession circumstances. Median household income in 2012 was still 8.3 percent lower than in 2007, the year before the most recent recession. Poverty was 2.5 percentage points higher than in 2007. Median income was also 9.0 percent lower than the median household income peak that occurred in 1999.

Posted in Income , Poverty | Tagged Current Population Survey | 2 Comments

How We Measure Health Insurance

Posted on September 11, 2013 by jennifer

Written by: Jonathan Rodean

Next week, the Census Bureau is releasing two sources for health insurance statistics in the United States:?? the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS ASEC) and the American Community Survey (ACS).? While both surveys have questions that attempt to measure the same phenomena, they go about it in different ways.

Since 1987, the CPS ASEC has collected health insurance statistics every year, making it one of the most widely used sources of statistics on health insurance coverage in the United States.? It provides statistics on health insurance status (insured or not insured), as well as type of coverage, for the whole nation, by demographic groups, and shows us trends over the last couple of decades. ?By combining two years of CPS sample, this survey can also provide state statistics on health insurance.

Starting five years ago, the Census Bureau also began asking about health insurance coverage using the ACS.? With its much larger sample size, we can see health insurance statistics for a broader range of geographic levels including all 50 states, all counties, metro areas, and many other small geographies.

Both surveys obtain a person’s health insurance status by asking if a person has insurance through a number of different sources: an employer, directly through an insurance company, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration and other public sector insurance and the military.? However, the surveys differ in both their time of collection and reference period.

Like the other topics in the CPS ASEC, which is conducted in February, March, and April, respondents answer questions about the previous calendar year.? Specifically, we ask if they were covered at any time in the previous calendar year.? CPS ASEC, thus, measures if a person was insured on any day during the previous year.? They are considered “uninsured” only if, for the entire year, they had no coverage under any type of health insurance.

In contrast, the ACS is a rolling sample of households collected continuously all year long.? We ask if a person is currently covered by any of the listed types of health insurance.? So, ACS measures health insurance of the population based on whether people are insured at the point-in-time that they answered the survey during the year of collection.

There is also a variety of differences in the survey logistics.? While the ACS is most often administered online or through a paper survey that is mailed to respondents, the CPS ASEC is administered by phone.? Because of space limits within the paper survey, the ACS asks fewer and less detailed questions than the CPS ASEC.? The ACS asks about the insurance coverage of each household member specifically, while the CPS ASEC asks if anyone in the household is covered, and if so, who that is.? ?

With these variations and others, the CPS ASEC and ACS produce slightly different statistics on health insurance coverage.? The two surveys show similar trends (as shown in the graph below), though the CPS ASEC shows higher uninsured rates for each year.? This degree of consistency between the two surveys collected under such different conditions gives us confidence that these statistics are useful for those who need to understand the state of health insurance in America.

Many people contact us each year asking how to know which estimate to use for a particular purpose. For national statistics, we recommend the CPS because it provides a consistent historical time series at the national level back more than a decade. The CPS 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.

Posted in Health Care | Tagged American Community Survey , Current Population Survey | Leave a comment

How the Census Bureau Measures Income and Poverty

Posted on September 11, 2013 by jennifer

Written by: David Johnson

Note: This is an updated? version of a blog that ran last year . It provides important information on when to use statistics from the Current Population Survey and when to use them from the American Community Survey for income and poverty.

Income, poverty and health insurance statistics ?for 2012 from the Current Population Survey (CPS) will be released Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013 . One-year statistics from the 2012 American Community Survey (ACS) will be released on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013 .

In all likelihood, the national statistics 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 statistics 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, other topics include education, language ability, the foreign-born, marital status, migration, homeownership, the cost and value of our homes and many more.

Statistics 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 2012 ACS (those who fill out the survey in January) are reporting income received between January 2011 and December 2011 while other respondents (those who fill out the survey in December) are reporting income received between December 2011 and November 2012.

Third, for the CPS, trained interviewers administer the survey while people primarily respond to ACS questions over the Internet or by mail. (Trained interviewers follow-up with households who do not respond to the ACS online or by mail.)

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

Many people contact us each year asking which estimate to use for a particular purpose. For national statistics, we recommend the CPS because it provides a consistent historical time series at the national level back, in some cases, ?more than half a century. The CPS 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.

The next two charts show the volatility of the single year CPS ASEC statistics relative to the ACS statistics for two smaller states: Arkansas and Maryland. Since the CPS has a smaller sample size, you see more volatility in these smaller states.

If you are interested in a longer time series for a small state than is available from the American Community Survey, we recommend using two- or three-year averages from the CPS ASEC.