Happy Holidays from Santa’s Workshop (Governmental Affairs Section)!
The U.S. Bureau of the Census recently released the results of the American Community Survey (ACS) for the five-year period covering 2017 through 2021. As described by the Census Bureau, the ACS “provides a wide range of important statistics about people and housing for every community in the nation. This survey is the only source of local estimates for most of the more than 40 topics it covers for communities across the nation.”
The ACS data is the result of a continuous survey program conducted by the bureau. Data collected during five-year timeframes is compiled and released annually; it offers a reliable snapshot of community conditions with very low statistical margins of error—generally less than half a percentage point for a community the size of Anderson County.
This edition of FFTK&T offers a review of what is called ACS “data profiles” for general economic, housing, and social conditions. Best practices issued by the Census Bureau recommend that we compare the 2017-2021 data with the preceding non-overlapping five-year period; in this case, that would be the 2012-2016 5-Year ACS.
There’s more data available from the ACS than we will cover here, and I’m sure we’ll provide more for your consideration in the coming weeks.
Can’t wait for us to comb through it all? Feel free to have a look at the data yourself! It’s free to use and available at www.data.census.gov.
And away we go…
~~~HOUSING CHARACTERISTICS~~~
Almost 5,000 occupied housing units in our community don’t have access to a vehicle. That’s more than six percent of all occupied housing units.
288 occupied housing units lack complete plumbing facilities. That’s over 100 more than counted in the 2012-2016 ACS. The increase could suggest problems related to aging housing stock, the need by many households for home repair assistance, and/or the presence of fundamental structural inadequacies in some rental units.
Fewer people are renting their dwelling units these days. The percentage of renter-occupied units dropped from 29.2% in the 2012-2016 ACS survey period to 26.5% for 2017-2021.
A household is generally considered to be “cost-burdened” if costs related to inhabiting a dwelling unit exceed 30% of household income. Going by this standard: Eighteen percent of owner-occupied housing units with a mortgage (or around 2,000) are cost-burdened. This is down quite a bit from the 26.5% measured by the 2012-2016 ACS.
Around 43% of renter-occupied units are cost-burdened. This is somewhat less than observed in the 2012-206 ACS (when more than fifty percent of rental households were cost-burdened), but it does provide evidence of a lack of affordable housing units here.
~~~ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS~~~
More people are working from home, though that percentage is relatively small in comparison to all workers.
4.3% of workers 16 years and over reported working from home during the 2017-2021 timeframe, compared to 2.6% reported in the 2012-2016 ACS.
The commute is longer than it was. According to the 2017-2021 ACS, the mean travel time to work was 25.1 minutes, a bit longer than the 22.9 minutes observed from 2012 to 2017.
There appears to have been a shift in the occupational profile of our community. Persons engaged in the management, business, science, and arts occupations group now account for 35.6% of the civilian employed population compared to 31.5% in the 2012-2016 period. That increase appears to have come at the expense of the sales and office occupations group, which saw its percentage of the workforce decrease from 24.6 to 18.9.
The educational services, health care, and social assistance industry group has traditionally been our area’s largest employer, which remains true today. 24.8% of the civilian employed population work in this industry. Manufacturing is the second largest employer among industry groups, accounting for 20.1% of the workforce.
It appears that more families when they are able to do so, are choosing to have a parent stay at home (and thus out of the labor force) during a child’s most formative years. 66.1% of households with children under six years reported all parents in the labor force during the 2012-2016 ACS period. As of the 2017-2021 period, that percentage dropped to 62.7%.
Just over 24% of Anderson County households earn in excess of $100,000 per year (in 2021 inflation-adjusted dollars). Median Household Income during the 2017-2021 period was measured at $56,796, and Mean Household Income was at $76,631.
A full one-quarter of all households have retirement income compared to around 19% in the 2012-2016 timeframe.
Mean Annual Income by source:
Earnings–$77,760
Social Security–$21,072
Retirement Income–$21,911
SSI–$10,042
Public Assistance–$3,796
Approximately 1,000 households in Anderson County (or 1.3% of total households) receive public assistance.
During the 2017-2021 ACS observation timeframe, around ten percent of households reported receiving Food Stamp/SNAP benefits at some point during the preceding 12 months. This percentage is a full one-third less than observed from 2012-2016 (15.5%).
About ninety percent of us have health insurance of some description, up from 87% in 2012-2016. While this is a positive indicator, we must note that almost 13% of employed persons report having no health insurance coverage.
Fourteen percent of all people here, and 20.4% of all people under 18 years, are reported to have had a household income below the poverty level sometime in the past twelve months.
~~~SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS~~~
Married couples comprise just over half of Anderson County’s 78,836 households, and cohabitating couples comprise six percent. The remaining households are headed by persons with no spouse or partner in residence.
The birth rate for women aged 20 to 34 years remained remarkably stable across the 2012-2016 and 2017-2021 ACS periods, clocking in at around 115 births per 1,000 women in the age group during both timeframes.
Of note is an observed spike in the birth rate for females aged 15 to 19. This age group had 17 births per 1,000 during the 2012-2016 timeframe.
In the 2017-2021 survey cycle, the birth rate for this age group doubled to 34 per 1,000.
42 percent of all grandparents reported being responsible for grandchildren under 18 years old. This represents a decrease from 52% for 2012-2016.
We’ve made measurable progress with regard to educational attainment. More than 85 percent of residents aged 25 years and older have at least a high school diploma, and persons with a Bachelor’s degree or higher increased from twenty percent in 2012-2016 to 25% in 2017-2021.
Our civilian veteran population is decreasing. In the 2012-2016 ACS observation period, there were an estimated 13,673 veterans, comprising 9.3% of the civilian population. There are now an estimated 13,409 veterans among us or 8.6% of the total civilian population.
Just over sixteen percent of the civilian noninstitutionalized population reports having a disability.
~~~IN CLOSING…~~~
On behalf of all of Santa’s Elves here at the Historic Courthouse, I’d like to offer Seasons Greetings to you and your loved ones and extend our Best Wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year. We all consider ourselves blessed to serve such a wonderful and special community.