One of the reasons that
income and poverty data from ACS is important and why we, as planners not
specifically transportation planners, should be interested in getting high
quality, consistent data is because HUD is planning to use the ACS data in
their Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnership
Program eligibility and funding distributions.
Nathan Erlbaum (NY State
DOT) shared the text below from the Census State Data Center (SDC) listserv, so
I hope it is OK to share with the CTPP listserv.
HUD to Use ACS Data to Set
HOME, CDBG Eligibility in FY 2011
HUD officials say they will
begin calculating Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment
Partnership Program eligibility and funding using American Community Survey
data for fiscal year 2011.
The ACS is used by the
Census Bureau as a way to fill in gaps between the 10-year population census
data normally used by HUD to determine program eligibility, funding allocation
and targeted program activities.
With factors such as
population and area median household income for neighborhoods among the various
factors HUD considers, the ACS data is seen as a way to prevent the occasional
massive changes local public housing agencies can face during a given 10-year
period. Instead, the intent to use ACS is to make the change more gradual and
consistent, thereby ensuring better use of federal dollars.
Urban counties and some
small entitlement jurisdictions in CDBG & HOME have their current data
built from block groups under the current system. The necessary five-year
average data for those groups in the ACS model likely won't be available until
mid-2010, he says. The first data HUD will use in the ACS model, therefore,
will cover the years 2006-2010, Todd Richardson, HUD director program
evaluation, tells CDD.
The new ACS also will
require changes to the Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) that
local programs have been required since 1990 as part of housing planning for
CDBG and HOME. The data helps HUD determine different characteristics of a
given community and was altered in 2000 following that census. New CHAS
computer tables using ACS data will be required. "We hope to have those
available in line with the start of using ACS,"
One issue that remains to be
determined is how HUD will define eligibility areas as low- and
moderate-income. Currently, HUD puts out block group files that take a
relatively small sample -- smaller than a census tract,
06/02/2008 4:49 PM
From:
ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Alan Pisarski
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
12:43 PM
To: ctpp-news@chrispy.net
Cc: 'Arlee Reno'
Subject: RE: [CTPP] CTPP Update
I agree with Steve. If you look today
at consumer expenditures data the income stuff is rather useless for the lower
income quintile. Those young and old spend more than their incomes. I
always use the spending data rather than incomes for my work. For
modeling the income issue will be critical.
Alan E. Pisarski
703 941-4257
alanpisarski@alanpisarski.com
From:
ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Polzin, Steve
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 3:37
PM
To: ctpp-news@chrispy.net
Subject: RE: [CTPP] CTPP Update
In some ways the quality and meaning of income data is
destined to get cloudier over time as more folks join the ranks of the
retired. Spending will be a combination of spending income and drawing
down assets - particularly as more folks are not privy to defined benefit
retirement plans. In addition the necessity of saving from income (versus
having an employer do it for you) may impact the actual discretionary share of
income for working folks. Add all the part time employment, self employed
etc. and we will likely struggle to find as much meaning in the income
data.
Steven E. Polzin, Ph.D.
Center for Urban Transportation Research
813-974-9849 (w)
813-416-7517 (c)
polzin@cutr.usf.edu
http://www.cutr.usf.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On
Behalf Of Frank Lenk
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 3:04 PM
To: ctpp-news@chrispy.net
Subject: RE: [CTPP] CTPP Update
I made this comment to Elaine off-line, and she
suggested I post it to
the entire group for reaction.
The more I read about asking people for their incomes
the prior 12
months, the more I worry about it being accurate, or
at least inaccurate
in a consistent way so that trends can be trusted. I
certainly couldn't
tell you my last 12 months of income without some
figuring - the
minimum calculation would appear to be what was my
salary last year,
what is it this year, how may months was I paid in one
versus the other
and applying the appropriate weighting factors.
And this doesn't count
differences in my non-salary income, which might come
at very irregular
intervals.
If this last-12-month approach does produce inaccurate
estimates (say
people either report what they earned last year or
what they are earning
this year, but not a weighted average), then applying
an inflation
factor based on the month seems wholly inappropriate
to me when we don't
really know which period they are using to estimate
their income.
Maybe it all averages out and I shouldn't worry. But
I'd rather they ask
what the income was on my last tax return. This is
something I've had to
spend significant time calculating beforehand and can
at least go look
up. Seems like this would produce a more stable,
precise estimate, even
though it wouldn't accurately reflect the my income
over the last 12
months.
The difficulty in establishing what is trend vs what is
error (or
difference from 2000 long-form) using ACS is for me
the most vexing part
of learning how to use it. Here, poverty rates jumped
up 50% since 2000
in some (but not all) counties. Admittedly, it's
been a relatively bad
decade for us economically in KC (employment didn't
surpass its 2001
pre-recession peak until the last half of 2006). But I
am having trouble
figuring out just how bad because I am uncertain how
to interpret the
ACS income results.
Any help will be appreciated.
Frank
Frank Lenk
Director of Research Services
Mid-America Regional Council
600 Broadway,
www.marc.org
816.474.4240
flenk@marc.org
816.701.8237
-----Original Message-----
From: ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net
[mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of
Murakami, Elaine
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 1:43 PM
To: ctpp-news@chrispy.net
Subject: RE: [CTPP] CTPP Update
Re: poverty and Income comparisons between
Census 2000 Long Form and
ACS:
The only report I am familiar with is:
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Downloads/Report05.pdf
Pages 34-37 discuss county-level comparisons.
These are comparisons
between the Census 2000 Long Form (aka sample) and the
ACS "C2SS", and
18 of the test ACS counties. They found that the
C2SS results
consistently had lower incomes than the Census 2000
sample, and
therefore, a higher poverty ratio. They
found that income allocation
occurs 30 percent in the Census 2000 sample, and 24%
in the C2SS.
I do not know if the Census Bureau has pursued other
research on how ACS
respondents answer the income questions.
Elaine
-----Original Message-----
From: ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net
[mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Ed
Christopher
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 9:50 AM
To: ctpp-news maillist
Subject: [CTPP] CTPP Update
On May 21 and June 4 members of the CTPP team
conducted a series of
webinars to help bring our community up-to-speed on
several of the CTPP
activities. The slides from these presentations
can be downloaded from
our webinar room at http://fhwa.acrobat.com/ctpp1
(enter as a guest) and
the responses to many of the questions asked during
the meetings are
presented below. If folks have additional
questions please feel free to
post them to the list serve and someone on the CTPP
team will attempt to
answer them.
CTPP Webinar - Questions and Answers
Question: Will the 3-year CTPP data product based on
ACS include tables
by race and household income?
Response: Yes but the best source for
information on race will still be
the Census Bureau's standard ACS tabulations found on
American
FactFinder (http://factfinder.census.gov/). The
3-year CTPP proposed
tables for parts 1 and 2 include a few tables with the
variable
"minority status." Also, there are various
tables with the variables -
Income, Poverty Status and Worker Earnings that will
be available.
Please note that Poverty Status is a calculated
variable based on
household income, family size, number of children and
number of family
members over the age of 65.
Question: Since the new CTPP products will be based on
data collected
over 3 years (or 5 years), to which year will the
income be adjusted?
Response: Income will be adjusted to the last
year of the survey
period. For the first 3-year product all
incomes will adjusted to
2007.
Question: Is there data available on zero car
households? If yes, what
geography level is it available?
Response: Yes, there will be information
available for zero car
households in both the 3-year CTPP data product and as
part of the
standard Census products. The data will be
available for geographic
areas greater than 20,000 residents.
Question: Slides 6 & 7 of the DRB presentation
show different
percentages of data lost due to DRB rules, why is
that?
Response: Slide 6 showed the number of workers
lost while slide 7
showed the number of origin-destination pairs
lost. The point is that
when thresholds were applied to CTPP Part 3 data as
was the case with
the 2000 data, many folks looked at the loss of
workers as being
significant but more surprising was actual loss of
individual O-D
pairs. All in all table thresholds devastated
the part 3 flow data.
Question: 2005 ACS data doesn't have information on
Group Quarters, but
the 2006 and 2007 do. How is this being handled
in the 3-year 2007 ACS
products?
Response: The Group Quarter data available for 2
years (2006 and 2007)
will be reweighed to account for the missing year.
Question: Will the variable - Means of Transportation
to Work have walk
and bike modes combined? Also, what about taxi, bus
and other?
Response: Regarding the 3-year CTPP data product
there are multiple
category lists for the variable - Means of
Transportation to Work.
There are a few tables all 17 modes plus the total are
shown separately
but then there are many others where walk and bike
have been collapsed
together. A great deal of the detail on the mode
variable is in the
hands of the Census Bureau's disclosure Review
Board. Currently they
have proposed some very tight restrictions on the
proposed 3-year CTPP
tables. Please see http://trbcensus.com/drb/ for
more
Question: Do you have anything on the TAZ definition
timeframe that you
can share with the group?
Response: Please see our Status Report
newsletter for the latest
http://www.TRBcensus.com/newsltr/sr052008.pdf.
Question: Can you talk about the difference in income
between ACS and
Long Form?
Response: In Census 2000, the question was asked
during April for the
previous year, 1999. Because April is so close to
IRS annual return
data it was felt that "good" income data was
being collected because it
was fresh in people's minds. However, for the
ACS the same questions
are asked, but the respondent could be getting the
survey during any
month of year (depending on when she/he received the
form). This
reported income is then adjusted to the current year
(year of
tabulation) based on CPI. There are several
issues with this with the
largest being that at anytime during the year most
people do not how
much money they made in the last 12 months.
Needless to say the income
question is messy.
Question: Poverty rates seem discontinuous, higher.
Any ideas why?
Response: Yes, they are discontinuous.
Hopefully they will look better
with the 3-year ACS data products.
Question: If the DRB is so strict with its rules then
why bother with
new TAZs?
Response: We hope that the DRB will relax its
rules but having TAZs
that correspond to the ACS data release products
(65,000 pop TAZs,
20,000 pop TAZs and small TAZs) will help us in the
future all sorts of
data products. Having geography match the data
release seems to make
good sense so that we can at least get complete
coverage (wall-to-wall)
within a region.
Question: What are the implications of rising fuel
prices on travel
choices on mode to work? Has anybody thought
about it, especially with
aggregating 3 years worth of data? Since the ACS
asks about "usual"
mode, it could still miss modes used only part of the
time.
Response: The 3 year ACS trend data might look a
lot different than the
2000 data. This might be a good research question.
Question: Is the category list for the variable -
occupation being
consolidated?
Response: No, DRB has not asked us to collapse
the variables - industry
or occupation.
Question: Is anybody planning to write to Congress
about the DRB issue?
Response: AASHTO SCOP is sending a letter to the
Census Bureau to appeal
the DRB decision. As FHWA staff, we cannot
contact Congress directly
but we know that many regional agencies do talk with
their Congressional
delegations. It is somewhat ironic but many of
the congressionally
mandated analysis like the FTA New Starts program and
environmental
justice analysis all need data at a smaller geography
level which will
be difficult to obtain with the DRB's current rules.
Question: We are relatively a new MPO and I have a
CTPP 101 question.
As an MPO do we need to provide you any information,
and what are our
sources of information regarding CTPP specifically
regarding TAZs?
Response: The CTPP listserve is a good place for
information regarding
ongoing CTPP related activities. The TAZ definition
process is planned
for March/April of 2009 and it is recommended that
MPO's allocate some
budget when preparing their work plans for FY 2009,
especially for new
MPOs. The CTPP Status Report is also a good source of
information. If
you have any particular questions please do not
hesitate to contact
anyone one of us on the CTPP team.
Question: Somewhere it was noted the first CTPP
ACS product would be
available in 2009 for areas of 20,000 or more for
places and counties.
Response: Yes that is correct. We are still in
the negotiation stage
regarding some DRB issues but this is our GOAL.
This first CTPP product
would use 3 years of ACS
data.
Question: There was also a mention of TAZ level
data also for 20,000
population threshold. However, I am not sure if
this is included in the
first 3 year product for 2009, or whether the first
TAZ level report
will not be available until 2012 with a 5 year product.
Response: To get "small" area geography like
a TAZ or a census tract,
the census requires 5 years of ACS data. So, we are
planning to wait for
2006 thru 2010 ACS data to incorporate 2010 Census
geography and
weights, which we hope would be tabulated by
2012. This will likely
require some data synthesis before release.
Because of the probability
that the data will be synthetic, we do not anticipate
any population
threshold.
--
Ed Christopher
708-283-3534 (V) 708-574-8131 (cell)
708-283-3501 (F)
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