Understanding the Financial Position of Households Using the American Community Survey

<p>In previous posts, we have talked about publicly available data on inflationary measures including the Consumer Price Index and the Construction Cost Index as well as on commercial energy use from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the US Census.  The US Census also has a rich set of data on the financial position of households within our community.  These data are especially relevant and helpful for determining the affordability of government utility services such as water and wastewater rates.</p> <p>It used to be that Census data were collected once every ten years, as mandated in the US Constitution.  But since the 2000 Census, the federal government now conducts the ongoing, annual American Community Survey which provides detailed information on population and housing characteristics and is the basis on which hundreds of billions of federal dollars are distributed to communities.</p> <p>For communities with populations of at least 65,000, survey data are collected annually.  Areas with populations of 20,000 and above have data collected once every three years, and all areas have data collected at least once every five years.</p> <p>Unlike the decennial census which strives to collect data from every household in the United States, the American Community Survey is just that—a survey, which uses statistical sampling to determine the reported values for any community, and those values come with a margin of error, which can be large depending on the size of the community.</p> <p>The easiest way to access data about your community is through the American FactFinder portal by simply typing in the name of your community [...]</p>