SEPT. 13, 2018 — The U.S. Census Bureau today released its most detailed look at America’s people, places and economy with new statistics on income, poverty, health insurance and more than 40 other topics from the American Community Survey (ACS).
Many large metropolitan areas saw an increase in income and a decrease in poverty rates between 2016 and 2017. During that same period, the health insurance coverage rate was 91.4 percent for the civilian noninstitutionalized population living inside metropolitan areas and 90.3 percent for the population living outside metropolitan areas. Today’s release provides statistics for U.S. communities with populations of 65,000 or more.
“The American Community Survey provides a wide range of important statistics about all communities in the United States,” Census Bureau Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division Chief David Waddington said. “It gives communities the current information they need to plan investments and services. Retailers, homebuilders, fire departments, and town and city planners are among the many private- and public-sector decision-makers who count on these annual statistics.”
Below are some of the local-level income, poverty and health insurance statistics from the ACS that complement the national-level statistics released on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018. These national-level statistics are from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS is the leading source for national-level data on income, poverty and health insurance, while the ACS is the leading source for community and local-level data.
The Census Bureau is currently working to streamline online data dissemination to be more customer-driven and user-friendly by creating one centralized and standardized platform to underlie searches on census.gov. Beginning Sept. 13, some 2017 ACS statistics, including detailed tables, data profiles, subject tables and comparison profiles, will be available on the preview site at data.census.gov, in parallel with the data released on American FactFinder. We encourage you to take a look and provide your thoughts on our work in progress at cedsci.feedback@census.gov.
The Census Bureau’s ACS Digital Data Wheel allows users to explore and compare social, economic, housing, and demographic and economic characteristics from all states, U.S. congressional districts and metropolitan statistical areas.
The second visualization, “What can you learn from the American Community Survey?” answers commonly asked demographic and socio-economic questions using ACS data. Users can visually explore characteristics of states, U.S. congressional districts and metropolitan statistical areas with an interactive map.
In the upcoming months the Census Bureau will release additional ACS data, including 2017 ACS supplemental tables and ACS five-year statistics (2013-2017).
These statistics would not be possible without the participation of the randomly selected households throughout the country that participated in the ACS.
###
Note: Statistics from sample surveys are subject to sampling and nonsampling error. All comparisons made in the reports have been tested and found to be statistically significant at the 90 percent confidence level, unless otherwise noted. Please consult the tables for specific margins of error. For more information, go to <https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/technical-documentation/code-lists.html>.
Changes in survey design from year-to-year can affect results. For more information on changes affecting the 2017 statistics, see <https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/news/data-releases/2017.html>.
For guidance on comparing 2017 American Community Survey statistics with previous years and the 2010 Census, see <https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/guidance/comparing-acs-data.html>.