Household Characteristics by Income

Household Characteristics by Income Methodology

This methodology cross-tabulates household demographic characteristics with income groups defined relative to the HUD Area Median Income (AMI). It provides a snapshot of who lives in a community, broken down by how much they earn.

Income Group Definitions

Households are classified into six AMI-relative income bands:

AMI dollar thresholds are geography- and year-specific:

Threshold_i,g = AMI_g × α_i

where α_i ∈ {0.30, 0.50, 0.80, 1.00, 1.20} and AMI_g is the HUD-published Area Median Income for geography g.

When HUD income limits are unavailable for a geography, the system falls back to:

AMI_fallback = B19113_g × 1.08

where B19113 is the ACS median family income and the 1.08 multiplier approximates the HUD AMI adjustment.

Census Income Rebinning

ACS income tables report household counts in 16 fixed dollar bins (e.g., $0-$10k, $10k-$15k, ..., $200k+). These must be rebinned to the AMI-relative bands, whose dollar boundaries vary by geography.

The rebinning uses proportional allocation:

H_AMI,j = Σ_i H_census,i × overlap(B_census,i, B_AMI,j) / width(B_census,i)

where:

• H_AMI,j = households assigned to AMI bin j
• H_census,i = households in Census bin i
• overlap() = dollar range overlap between the Census bin and the AMI bin
• width() = width of the Census bin

For the open-ended top bin ($200k+), all households are fully allocated to whichever AMI bin contains $200k+.

Demographic Categories

Four demographic dimensions are cross-tabulated with income:

1. Household Type

Family and nonfamily households are classified into three groups:

2. Age of Householder

Age groups from ACS Table B19037 (Age of Householder by Household Income):

3. Race of Householder

Race data comes from race-specific household income tables (B19001A through B19001G). The display logic selects:

1. Top 3 races by total household count (from tables A-E: White, Black, American Indian, Asian, Pacific Islander)
2. Other — sum of remaining single-race categories plus "Some other race" (table F)
3. Two or more races — table G

This ensures the chart highlights the most prevalent racial groups while aggregating smaller categories.

4. Ethnicity of Householder

Ethnicity is reported as two groups:

• Hispanic — from B19001I (Hispanic or Latino householder)
• Non-Hispanic — calculated as B19001 (total) minus B19001I, bin by bin

This subtraction approach is more accurate than using B19001H (White Alone, Not Hispanic), which would exclude non-Hispanic Black, Asian, and other racial groups from the non-Hispanic count.

Display Logic

When a geography has no data in the 100-120% AMI band across all rows, the 100-120% and >120% columns are merged into a single ">=100%" column to avoid displaying empty categories.

Data Sources