The Community Research Collaborative Blog

American Community Survey Age Data: Diamonds or Dust?

By: John Besl

In my last blog post, I examined disparities in estimates of total population produced by the U.S. Census Bureau for several municipalities in the Cincinnati Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).  The focus was on population estimates coming from the American Community Survey (ACS) for periods of one, three, or five years.  The perfunctory conclusion was that ACS cannot be relied upon to produce stable population estimates, especially for small areas.  In this month’s space, I want to dive a little deeper into ACS estimates, spotlighting recent estimates of the age distribution in many of the same municipalities featured in the February post. 

 

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Overlapping Array of Population Estimates Create a Fog of Data

By: John Besl

In September 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau issued their Vintage 2009 series of population estimates for cities and villages across the country.  In the 17 months since then, the Census Bureau has released several more numbers representing total population, including the “official” 2010 Census count, for these same areas.  For larger municipalities such as Cincinnati, the Census Bureau has now issued eight separate total population figures since September 2010 for various time frames covering the latter part of the 2001-2010 decade.  Sound confusing?  Well, it certainly can be – but in this post I’ll try to explain briefly where all these numbers are coming from, and make comparisons with illustrations featuring local municipalities. 

 

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A Dynamic Picture of Population Change and Aging

By: John Besl

On December 1, United Way of Greater Cincinnati hosted a program titled “Demographics Forum: Strategic View of Our Region’s Changing Demographics for Nonprofit and Civic Organizations.”  The keynote speaker, Dr. Warren Brown of Cornell University, covered multiple topics related to the demographic composition of the Cincinnati region, including our age composition and how it compares to the United States as a whole.

In the course of his talk, Dr. Brown went on to display a few charts depicting age composition for the Cincinnati metro area and selected counties from the 2010 Census, as well as the two previous national headcounts.  The charts showed a dynamic picture of population change and aging over the past two decades.  In this post, I want to review those charts while examining some other jurisdictions in the metro area, and adding some commentary.

 

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Poverty Measurement Redefined

By: John Besl

In my October post, I reported on the latest national findings on income and poverty from the Current Population Survey.  The nation’s official poverty rate increased from 14.3% in 2009 to 15.1% in 2010, while the number of people in poverty grew by 2.6 million.  As grim as those numbers may sound, many researchers believe that the official poverty measure, which was developed in the 1960s, understates the true extent of deprivation in the United States. 

 

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Income Divide Sparks Public Protests

By: John Besl

The campsites are gone from Piatt Park in downtown Cincinnati, but the discontent behind the “Occupy Cincinnati” protest movement continues to simmer, and the original “Occupy Wall Street” protest drags on.  A familiar criticism of the protests goes like this, “What do they want, and what exactly are they protesting against?”  Boiled down to its essence, the short answer is income inequality, whereby “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.”  I’d like to use the space this month to report on this timely topic, first describing recent national trends, then drilling down with new state and metropolitan data from the American Community Survey.  Finally, we’ll highlight a single Cincinnati census tract that ranks first on a key measure of income inequality among some 60,000 tracts nationwide.

 

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New Census Bureau Report Documents the Spread of Poverty

By: John Besl

The American public has been bombarded lately with sour economic news.  The Census Bureau piled even more evidence last month, with the release of its annual report on national trends in income, poverty, and health insurance coverage.  (View the report here.)  The data were collected as part of the 2011 Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement. 

The number of Americans living in poverty increased to 46.2 million in 2010, the highest total in 52 years of published poverty estimates.  An additional 2.6 million people slipped into poverty between 2009 and 2010, the fourth consecutive annual increase.  The poverty rate also rose for the fourth consecutive year, from 14.3 percent in 2009 to 15.1 percent in 2010.

 

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“Traditional” Family – Not Endangered, but Shrinking

By: John Besl

In my last blog, I discussed the remarkable growth in recent decades in the number of births to unmarried parents, both locally and nationally.  In this month’s space, I’d like to talk about another trend, one that’s related to last month’s topic, but also reflects a separate “megatrend” - the aging of America. 

If you ask a baby boomer what the typical American household looks like, most would probably describe a mom and dad with at least one child under the age of 18.  This household type has been immortalized in TV sitcoms ranging from “Ozzie and Harriet” to “The Cosby Show” to “Everybody Loves Raymond.”  Results of the 2010 Census, however, reveal that what I prefer to call the “traditional” family now accounts for only one in five U.S. households.

 

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Births to Unmarried Moms Increase Sharply

By: John Besl

The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, designed by a team of researchers at Princeton and Columbia Universities and launched in 1998, follows a birth cohort of nearly 5,000 children, three-quarters of them born to unmarried parents.  The study focuses on the burgeoning number of “fragile families,” couples who are unmarried when their children are born.  In several publications and data briefs, researchers provide strong evidence that having married parents enhances the life chances of children.  The rapid rise in nonmarital childbearing over recent decades, and especially in the first decade of the 21^st century, has raised serious concerns among academic researchers and policy makers about the implications of nonmarital births for our country’s future health and productivity.

 

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Detailed 2010 Census Data Now Available Online

By John Besl

With the release of state redistricting files during February and March, the U.S. Census Bureau fulfilled its mandate to provide population counts that will be used to re-draw congressional and legislative districts in each state.  Those counts included full breakdowns on the racial and ethnic composition of the total population and the voting-age population, but not much else.  If you’ve hungered for more detailed census information on age, sex, race and Hispanic Origin, household composition, or housing occupancy and tenure, we have good news for you -- your wait is over, or at least nearly over. 

Last week, the Census Bureau started dissemination of the 2010 Demographic Profile Summary File, releasing detailed demographic data for the District of Columbia and several states, including Kentucky.  Ohio’s demographic profile is scheduled to be released the week of May 9.  Along with state-level information, profiles will be available for counties, cities, and towns, as well as congressional and legislative districts.

In this blog, I want to share a few “how- to” instructions about using the new create American FactFinder 2 website to enable readers to find 2010 demographic profiles for their own communities.

 

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A First Look at 2010 Census Results for the Cincinnati MSA

By John Besl

Throughout February and March, the U.S. Census Bureau engineered the state-by-state release of the first local area data from the 2010 Census.  With the release of Kentucky’s 2010 redistricting file on March 17, it was possible to calculate the population of the Cincinnati Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which includes 15 counties in three states.  The metro area added 120,519 residents since 2000 to reach a total population of 2,130,151.  The MSA’s modest growth rate of 6.0% compares favorably to Ohio’s 1.6% rate, but trails Indiana and Kentucky at 6.6% and 7.4%, respectively.  All three states and the Cincinnati MSA lagged well behind the 9.7% population increase nationwide.

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