Using income and household relationship data from the American
Community Surveys (ACS), the Census Bureau provides
unofficial estimates of the number and percentage of people
in poverty for sub-national levels of geography.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates
(SAIPE) program provides annual estimates of income and poverty
statistics for all school districts, counties, and states.
These Census Bureau report analyzes demographic and socioeconomic
characteristics of census tracts by categorizing the tracts based
on their poverty levels. Tracts with poverty rates of 20% or more
are considered “poverty areas”. Recent reports draw data
from the America Community Survey and older data come the the
Census long form.
