Estimating Household Income from Location

Abstract

A Block Income Estimating Procedure (BIEP) in presented for estimating the average income of the households of a Census block, using block housing information and Census tract distributions relating to housing and household income. Such block income estimates are very useful when dealing with household data sets which do not include income but where the household's address is known. In addition, BIEP can be used to estimate the average income of geographic areas that do not coincide with Census tracts or postal zip code areas, the smallest spatial units for which official data are available. BIEP's efficacy is tested using a special Census tabulation for Philadelphia school feeder areas, and it is compared with its closest rival, a tracts-average procedure. BIEP is found to work well relative to the other procedure.

Key Words:

• Block income estimation
• Income estimation from housing data
• Permanent income estimates
• Imperfect housing-income correlation
• Census tract income and block housing data