Poverty rate
The share of people whose family income over the past 12 months fell below the federal poverty threshold for their family size and composition.
The share of people in a tract living below the federal poverty threshold. This is a person-level rate, not a household-level one: everyone in a family below the threshold is counted, children included.
The definition is federal, not the Census Bureau's own. Poverty statistics in ACS products "adhere to the standards specified by the Office of Management and Budget in Statistical Policy Directive 14. The Census Bureau uses a set of dollar value thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine who is in poverty... If a family's total income is less than the dollar value of the appropriate threshold, then that family and every individual in it are considered to be in poverty" (ACS Subject Definitions).
Thresholds vary by family size, by the number of related children, and by the age of the reference person for one- and two-person units. They do not vary by geography. The same income line applies in Manhattan and in rural Mississippi, so the rate should be read as a measure of income relative to a national standard rather than to the local cost of living.
Metrics in this family#
Poverty rate
The current share of people below the threshold, from the most recent ACS 5-year vintage.
Poverty rate trend
Change in that share over 3, 5, or 10 years, selectable in the tool.
Because the poverty rate is itself a rate, its trend is reported as a change in percentage points rather than as a percentage change. Percentage-point changes remain comparable between places at different starting levels.
Considerations#
The universe excludes people whose poverty status the Bureau does not determine: "institutionalized people, people in military group quarters, people in college dormitories, and unrelated individuals under 15 years old. These groups were excluded from the numerator and denominator when calculating poverty rates." Tracts dominated by a university campus, a military base or a correctional facility therefore describe a smaller population than their headcount suggests, and their rate can be counter-intuitive.
Because the thresholds are national, a tract in an expensive metro can show a low poverty rate while a large share of its residents are nonetheless struggling with local housing costs. Rent burden and owner cost burden measure that separately.
ACS 5-year estimates describe a five-year period, not a year, so windows shorter than five years compare periods that share years. The Bureau's guidance is "do not compare overlapping datasets" (Comparing ACS Data). The three-year window here is such a comparison: the two vintages share two of their five years. We publish it because it is the only recent-movement view the ACS supports at tract level, and read as a direction it still carries signal. It is not a before-and-after measurement, its movement is damped, and turning points show up late. Where the question is whether something genuinely changed, the five- and ten-year windows compare periods that do not overlap and answer it better.
Income is reported for the past 12 months relative to each respondent's interview date, and thresholds are inflated to match, so a 5-year estimate pools twelve-month income windows spread across roughly six calendar years.
Census tract boundaries were redrawn for the 2020 census. Estimates published on earlier boundaries are carried onto current ones before use — see geography.
Coverage runs through the most recent ACS 5-year release. Publication lags the present, and 5-year estimates are the least current of the ACS products by design.
Every ACS estimate carries a margin of error, published by the Bureau alongside it, and margins are widest in small tracts.
References#
- 1ACS Subject Definitionshttps://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/subject_definitions/2024_ACSSubjectDefinitions.pdf
- 2Comparing ACS Datahttps://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/guidance/comparing-acs-data.html