Data Notes
Understanding poverty in a county is crucial to knowing if its residents can meet their basic needs. However, many U.S. poverty measures often overlook the cost of living, especially related to housing expenses. Given that housing costs significantly impact households, examining the percentage of income spent on housing can offer valuable insights into an area’s economic well-being.
In this data visualization, we explore the number of households facing cost burdens, using data from the Census Bureau. To identify a housing unit as burdened, we set a threshold: if more than 35 percent of a household’s income goes toward housing costs, it is considered cost burdened. The data is categorized for renters, homeowners with a mortgage, and homeowners without a mortgage.
The housing data for this visual was gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau’s API. The data is provided from 2022 American Community Survey 5-year estimates. After I scraped the data from the API using Python, I then used Tableau to create this viz.
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