Student's Choice Presentation

Link to SAIPE interactive tool: https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/saipe/#/?map_geoSelector=aa_c

Link to Video:https://youtu.be/eEZOGzbTycU

What is the purpose of this tool?

The U.S. Census Bureau has a program named Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program. This program provides annual estimates of income and poverty for all counties, states, and school districts. There are around 13,000+ school districts in the U.S.

The main purpose of this program is to provide estimates of income and poverty so they know where to allocate federal funds to local jurisdictions and for the administration of federal programs. These federal programs, state, and local programs use these estimates for distributing funds and managing programs.

What data is shown in the visualization?

The data that is produced by the SAIPE program are for the following county and state estimates:

total number of people in poverty
number of children under age 5 in poverty (states only)
number of related children ages 5 to 17 in families in poverty
number of children under age 18 in poverty
median household income

The SAIPE program also produces the following estimates for school districts:

total population
number of children ages 5 to 17
number of related children ages 5 to 17 in families in poverty

How was the data collected?

There are a lot of data sources that are used for producing the SAIPE program estimates; some of the data is not publicly available too. The county and state models use selected variables based on surveys and administrative sources including:

1. American Community Survey

1.1. SAIPE program started using direct single-year estimates of income and poverty from the ACS starting in the 2005 estimates and onwards.

2. Annual Social and Economic Supplement(ASEC) of CPS

2.1. Direct estimates of income and poverty from the ASEC of the CPS, for SAIPE 2004 and prior year estimates.

3. Decennial Census

3.1. Direct surveys estimates of income and poverty from the household survey accompanying the Decennial Census for 1980, 1990, 2000.

4. Federal Income Tax Returns

4.1. Data summarized from federal individual income tax returns.

5. SNAP Benefits Recipients

5.1. Number of recipients of SNAP benefits(formerly known as the Food Stamp Program).

6. BEA Personal Income Estimates

6.1. Aggregate personal income estimates from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

7. Supplemental Security Income Estimates

7.1. Number of recipients of Supplemental Security Income benefits.

8. Population Estimates

8.1. Postcensal demographic estimates of the population of states and countries, by age and group quarters status.

9. Denominators for Poverty Rates

9.1. Adjusted estimates of population used as denominators in the poverty rates.

Who are the users that this visualization was made for?

Some users that can use this visualization are for people that are in charge of the administration of federal programs and allocation of federal finds to local jurisdictions. Not only on the federal level but people in charge of state and local programs can use this tool for distributing funds and managing programs. This visualization was also made for the general public I believe since it is made public by the U.S. Census Bureau.

What questions do people have to ask?

1. What was the Median Household Income in 2019 in Cook County, IL?

2. What percent of the U.S. population in 2019 was in poverty?

3. What percent of the U.S. population in 2000 was in poverty?

4. What state had the highest poverty rates for children under the age of 18?

5. What is the poverty rate of people ages 5 to 17 in Families in the Chicago Public School (CPS) District 299 in 2019?

6. Which county and state have the lowest Median Household Income in 2019?

... and many more questions can be answered.

How can they find the answers with this tool?

1. What was the Median Household Income in 2019 in Cook County, IL?

When picking Poverty Rates or Income click Median Household Income (state/county), and then filter state by Illinois and counties by Cook County. There will be a map displaying the county, a table displaying the median household income, and a line plot displaying information from 1997 to 2019. The median household income in Cook County in 2019 was $69,375.

2. What percent of the U.S. population in 2019 was in poverty?

By default when you open the interactive tool there is a table. The first row in the table shows the percent in Poverty, number in poverty, etc. in the whole U.S. About 12.3% of the U.S. population lives in poverty.

3. What percent of the U.S. population in 2000 was in poverty?

On the table view of the data there is a column for the years. When clicking the upside down blue-lined triangle, it will allow the user to filter the data by years. Check 2000 and apply the changes. The first row in the table shows the percent of the U.S. population that was living in poverty which is 11.3%.

4. What state had the highest poverty rates for children under the age of 18?

When filtering the data click “Under age 18(state/county)”, and the map and the table will automatically update the data for the user. Use the map and instead of filtering the data by counties filter it by states. The states with the stronger color orange have a higher poverty rate based on the legend. Based on the map Mississippi has the highest poverty rate for people under the age of 18, at 27.6%.

5. What is the poverty rate of people ages 5 to 17 in Families in the Chicago Public School (CPS) District 299 in 2019?

When filtering the data click “Ages 5 to 17 in Families (school district)”, then you can filter the data by school district, so we type Chicago and check the box for CPS. The biggest school district in Cook County is CPS and when you click on it in the map, it shows that 21.8% of children ages 5 to 17 in families live in poverty.

6. Which county and state have the lowest Median Household Income in 2019?

First start by clicking “Median Household Income(state/county)”, the data presented in the table and map should be updated. Then on the table view section sort the Median Household Income* from smallest to greatest. When doing so we find out that Clay County in Georgia has the lowest Median Household Income in 2019, by $24,732.

What works?

When opening the SAIPE interactive tool the thing that stood out to me the most was how it had 3 different ways of representing the data. A map, a line plot, and a table view. However you can maximize or minimize whichever one you want. The SAIPE tool also has a lot of different data the user can look at such as poverty rates for all ages, those under the age of 18, and etc. I also like how you can download the data for each separately after you have filtered the data. For the map and line plot you can download the data as a jpeg or pdf. For the table you can download it as CSV or pdf.

The way of filtering the data is very user friendly. You can filter the data by States, Counties, and School Districts. For all those different ways to filter the data by you can sort the ST abbreviation and/or the data you are trying to filter. There is also a search bar if you are trying to find a specific state name, county, or school district.

The map has a quite a few ways to interact with it. It has a legend on the bottom left, and you can change the transparency of the different items in the legend. The map has a way to change the view of the map on the bottom right, a way to reset to the default view on the top right and you can also filter the data that you are viewing by year. Also depending on what data you are looking at you can filter the view based on states or counties. I also liked how when you hover over a county or state it shows the estimate poverty rate, 90% confidence interval and the name of the county or state.

The line plot is very clean. It shows the estimate poverty rate for each state from 1997 to 2019. This is the default view but you can also filter the line plot on the sidebar. On the bottom it shows all the states or the entire U.S. and the color of the line for each. You can click the state name, county, or school district to make it appear or go away on the line plot.

For the table view you can use the sidebar to filter the data you want. You can also sort the data by clicking on the column names. When you click on the column name you can sort the data from highest to lowest or lowest to highest. When clicking the column name with Year you can check the boxes for specific years from 1989 to 2019 or check all of them. What I really like is how you can download the data as a CSV file.

What needs improvement?

Overall the visualizations and the way to interact with it are very good. However there are some improvements that can be made such as:

Changing the y-bounds for the line plots depending on the max percent of the specific data you are looking at.
increasing the font size of the legend for the line plot.
adding a title to the map legend.
using different colors for all the ways you can filter the data in the poverty rates or income section. It did use 4 different colors but for two of them they were repeated.

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