Orange County

Some helpful thoughts to consider as you look through this data.

Data Aggregation and Dissemination: Census data is typically aggregated and disseminated at different geographic levels, ranging from blocks to larger areas like census tracts, counties, and states. The accuracy of poverty estimates diminishes as the geographic unit becomes smaller due to potential data suppression to protect individual privacy.

Margin of Error: Smaller geographic units often have a higher margin of error in the data, which means that poverty estimates could be less accurate and less reliable at the block level compared to larger areas. This is particularly true for low-income populations that may be undercounted or undersampled in the census.

Data Suppression: To protect privacy, census data may be suppressed or modified in areas with a low population, which could affect the accuracy of poverty estimates for small geographic units.

Sampling and Representation: Census data collection involves sampling, and not every household may respond to the census. This can lead to underrepresentation of certain groups, including low-income families. Moreover, the demographic characteristics of a block can change over time, affecting the accuracy of historical poverty estimates.

Local Variation: Poverty is not evenly distributed within neighborhoods or blocks. There may be pockets of poverty or affluence within a small geographic area. This variation can be challenging to capture accurately with census data alone.

Data Quality and Updates: Census data quality can vary depending on factors like the willingness of residents to respond, data collection methods, and local outreach efforts. Additionally, census data is typically collected every 10 years, which may not capture short-term changes in poverty levels.

Supplementary Data: To enhance the accuracy of poverty estimates at the block level, researchers often use supplementary data sources, such as administrative records, surveys, and local community data.

Statistical Techniques: Researchers may employ statistical techniques to estimate poverty rates at finer geographic levels based on available data, but these estimates could be less precise.

Sources and Definitions

l statistics represented on this site are taken from the U.S. Census Bureau (2020) unless otherwise specified below.

  • People
    • Life Expectancy: U.S. Life Expectancy Study (2015)
  • Churches
    • All data in this section was taken from gathered church information from the Association of Religious Data (ARDA) Grammich, C. A., Dollhopf, E., Gautier, M., Houseal, R., Jones, D. E., Krindatch, A., ... Thumma, S. (2023, March 31). U.S. Religion Census - Religious Congregations and Membership Study, 2020 (County File).

Realities

1. Affordable housing

  • Total Housing Burdened - American Community Survey 5-Year Data (2019-2023)
  • Cost Burden Over Time - American Community Survey 5-Year Data (2019-2023)
  • Rental vs. Owner at Income Level - American Community Survey 5-Year Data (2019-2023)
  • Ownership by Income Level Over Time - American Community Survey 5-Year Data (2019-2023)
  • Homeowners as % of Race Over time - American Community Survey 5-Year Data (2019-2023)

2. Childhood Literacy

  • Reading Proficiency - U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2022 Reading Assessment.
  • Reading Proficiency by Race - U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2022 Reading Assessment.
  • Reading Level by Economic Status - U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2022 Reading Assessment.
  • Reading Achievement Over Time - U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2022 Reading Assessment.
  • Household Educational Attainment - American Community Survey 5-Year Data (2019-2023)
  • The National Center for Education Statistics measures reading scores at grades 4, 8 and 12. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cnb

3. Church Growth/Decline

  • Grammich, C. A., Dollhopf, E., Gautier, M., Houseal, R., Jones, D. E., Krindatch, A., ... Thumma, S. (2023, March 31). U.S. Religion Census - Religious Congregations and Membership Study, 2020 (County File).

4. Foster Care

  • Webster, D., Lee, S., Dawson, W., Magruder, J., Exel, M., Cuccaro-Alamin, S., Putnam-Hornstein, E., Wiegmann, W., Saika, G., Courtney, M., Eastman, A.L., Gomez, A., Guo, S., Zhang, A., Carrera, Y., Dua, A., Berwick, H., Lu, F., Hoerl, C., Yee, H., Gonzalez, A., Gomez Hernandez, F., Ensele, P., Nevin, J., & Michel, J. (2025) CCWIP reports. Retrieved Feb 23, 2025, from University of California at Berkeley California Child Welfare Indicators Project website. URL: https://ccwip.berkeley.edu

5. Homelessness

6. Immigrations and Refugees

  • American Community Survey 5-Year Data (2019-2023)
  • Immigrant and Refugee as % of immigrants - United States. Department of Homeland Security. 2023 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Homeland Security Statistics, 2023.

Definitions

Families in Poverty To calculate total family income, the incomes of all related family members that live together are added up to determine poverty status. If an individual or group of individuals (such as housemates) are not living with family members, their own individual income is compared with their individual poverty threshold. For more detail see https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty/guidance/poverty-measures.html

Indo-European languages is as follows (except for the ones explicitly listed in the graph): Haitian, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Greek, Russian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Czech, Ukrainian, Armenian, Persian, Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Nepali, Marathi, Albanian, Lithuanian, Pashto (Pushto), Romanian, Swedish, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, or other Dravidian languages

Economically Disadvantaged The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is defining Economically Disadvantaged status as: Any student identified by a Public School Unit (PSU), meeting the criteria of Directly Certified, Categorically Eligible, or a method consistent with state or federal guidance for financial assistance regardless of participation or eligibility in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) https://www.dpi.nc.gov/data-reports/economically-disadvantaged

Immigrant Any person lawfully in the United States who is not a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or person admitted under a nonimmigrant category as defined by the INA Section 101(a)(15). From https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/reporting-terminology-definitions

Refugee Status granted to an individual, prior to departure for and arrival in the United States, who has been determined by competent authority to be fleeing persecution or have a well-founded fear of persecution in their own country because of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. From https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/reporting-terminology-definitions

Total Adherents: all members, including full members, their children, and the estimated number of other participants who are not considered members; for example, the "baptized," "those not confirmed," "those not eligible for Communion," "those regularly attending services," and the like. From https://www.thearda.com/data-archive?fid=RCMSCY20

Chronic Homelessness: According to HUD A ‘‘chronically homeless’’ individual is defined to mean a homeless individual with a disability who lives either in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven, or in an emergency shelter, or in an institutional care facility if the individual has been living in the facility for fewer than 90 days and had been living in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven, or in an emergency shelter immediately before entering the institutional care facility. From https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2015-12-04/pdf/2015-30473.pdf

Recurring Homelessness:

OPPLA - *Other planned permanent living arrangement (OPPLA). This is a permanency option only when other options such as reunification, adoption, or guardianship have been ruled out.