Poverty Counts: Data for Activists
and Analysts
Cultivating Hope: Harvesting Action
Rural Poverty and Social Change
Conference, UMass Amherst
June 2, 2006
Susan Edwards
Getting Started
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Who are you?
What do you want to know?
Can we find it?
Hampshire County Poverty
Franklin County Poverty
Worcester County Poverty
Berkshire County Poverty
What do official poverty statistics
measure?
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How the Census measures poverty
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/povdef.html
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Severe poverty: less than 50% of poverty
Near poverty: up to 200% of poverty
Thresholds vs. Guidelines
HHS Bases the Poverty Guidelines on
the Thresholds
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Published by the Department of Health and
Human Services in February, in the Federal
Register http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/index.shtml
Thresholds are the same for urban and rural
areas and all 50 states. Guidelines are
different for Alaska and Hawaii.
Other Poverty Measures
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An extremely low income household is less
than 30% of median income.
A very low income household is less than
50% of median income.
Low income is up to 80% of median.
Census 2000 is the main source of
poverty data for rural Massachusetts
Census 2000 ~ poverty by:
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town
race/Hispanic
age and sex
disability
family composition (single parent)
employment
Race
The fact that race matters… does not mean
that the salience and consequences of racial
distinctions are good or that race must
continue to matter in the future. Nor does the
brute sociological fact that race matters
dictate what one’s response to that fact
should be.
--Randall Kennedy
Race/Hispanic and Census 2000
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Hispanic is not a race ~ it is an ethnicity.
Hispanics can be of any race, but from a Spanish
background (Brazilians are not Hispanic!)
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Each person could choose up to 6 races:
Black, Asian, American Indian/Alaska Native, Native
Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, White, Some Other Race
(Some other Race is 98% Hispanic.)
Don’t let this happen to you!
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Town of Amherst released a Demographics
Fact Sheet
It says the minority population is 20.7%.
Is that correct?
http://www.amherst.edu/library/research/AmherstDemographics.pdf
No-Almost one thousand of the Whites are also
Hispanic – so the percentage of “minorities”
is closer to 25% than 20%.
American Factfinder: Fact Sheet for
Town or County easy way to start
Finding Poverty Data – Census 2000
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American Factfinder http://factfinder.census.gov/
Fact Sheet by Towns or Counties quickest
way to find poverty for individuals and
families.
Can switch to any race/Hispanic group to see
poverty for that group (Non-Hispanic Whites,
for example.)
Updating the poverty numbers:
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American Community Survey (ACS) will be
replacing the Decennial Census long form
(questions about income, etc.)
It will be available for all towns in
Massachusetts by 2010, but should be
available for counties in’06, large towns ’08.
It will be added to the Fact Sheets/Data Sets.
SAIPE –
Small Area Income and Poverty Data
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Created by the Census and other federal agencies to
update the Decennial Census poverty data. Latest
year of coverage is 2003.
States, counties and school districts – not towns.
Poverty for all ages, children under 5 (only at the
state level), children 0-17, and children 5-17.
County level it also gives the median family income.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe/
Poverty Related Data
Cliks:
Community Level Information on Kids
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Data about children from all the towns in
Massachusetts.
From local sources, such as health
departments, human services agencies, and
schools.
Includes WIC participation, DSS
investigations, teen pregnancy rate, MCAS
scores, poverty, etc.
http://www.aecf.org/cgi-bin/cliks.cgi?
DataPlace – data for towns
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Customizable data, including maps
HUD Area Median Family Income
IRS Summary data -- includes number of low
income people, and those eligible for EITC
Multifamily Assistance and Section 8
Contracts
Simplified Census interface
http://www.dataplace.org/
KidsCount: Census
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User friendly interface to Census data about
kids.
Provides comparisons of 1990 to 2000
Allows you to get data for any or all towns in
Massachusetts.
Doesn't have all the variables in the Census,
but for data about kids it’s easier to use.
http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/census/
AFF Data Choices: Power Users
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SF1 and 2 have no income data, SF3 and SF4 do
SF3 has race/Hispanic for 6 major races for some
SF4 has more groups (Cambodians, Mexicans)
http://factfinder.census.gov/home/en/epss/reg_list.html
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For more about the choices:
http://www.amherst.edu/library/research/AFFDataChoices.rtf
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Search on Poverty in table locator
www.censusmanual.com
How to Use the tables:
http://www.amherst.edu/library/research/HowToDetailedTables.rtf
Poverty data for Western Mass
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Poverty by Race by County
http://www.amherst.edu/library/research/PovertyRaceCounty.xls
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Poverty by Town
http://www.amherst.edu/library/research/PovertyByTown.xls
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Poverty in North Quabbin
http://www.amherst.edu/library/research/PovertyNorthQuabbin.xls
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Rent as percent of Income: Franklin County
http://www.amherst.edu/library/research/RentByIncome.csv
Detailed Race/Hispanic categories
(on Summary File 4)
SF4 has poverty for very specific groups –
Cambodians (as opposed to Asians),
Mexicans (not just Hispanics), and for groups
that aren’t “races” but ancestries – Brazilians,
Arabs. You can get the data for all the towns
in several counties at the same time.
Good tutorial from UCSC --http://ssdc.ucsd.edu/ssdc/cen2k/raceguide.pdf
Where to get help:
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M-F 8:30-4:30 from Boston Regional Census
Office, (617) 424-4501
MISER, State Data Center at UMass
Amherst, (413) 545-3460
http://www.umass.edu/miser/contact.html
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Susan Edwards, Amherst College Library
seedwards@amherst.edu, (413)542-2767