Income – Inequality (GINI Index)
This indicator reports income inequality using the Gini coefficient. Gini index values range between zero and one. A value of one indicates perfect inequality where only one household has any income. A value of zero indicates perfect equality, where all households have equal income.
Note: Index values are acquired from the 2019-23 American Community Survey and are not available for custom report areas or multi-county areas.
Source
Source Description
The American Community Survey (ACS) is a nationwide survey designed to provide communities with reliable and timely social, economic, housing, and demographic data every year. The ACS has an annual sample size of about 3.5 million addresses, with survey information collected nearly every day of the year. Data are pooled across a calendar year to produce estimates for that year. As a result, ACS estimates reflect data that have been collected over a period of time rather than for a single point in time as in the decennial census, which is conducted every 10 years and provides population counts as of April 1. The Census Bureau combines 5 consecutive years of ACS data to produce estimates for geographic areas with fewer than 65,000 residents. These 5-year estimates represent data collected over a period of 60 months. Because the ACS is based on a sample, rather than all housing units and people, ACS estimates have a degree of uncertainty associated with them, called sampling error. In general, the larger the sample, the smaller the level of sampling error. Data users should be careful in drawing conclusions about small differences between two ACS estimates because they may not be statistically different.
For more information about this source, including data collection methodology and definitions, refer to the American Community Survey data user’s website.
Methodology
Counts of total households GINI index values are acquired from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). Data represent estimates for the 5-year period 2019-2023. Mapped data are summarized to 2023 census tract boundaries. This indicator reports income inequality in the US using the GINI index. The Census Bureau defines the Gini index as “a statistical measure of income inequality ranging from 0 to 1. A measure of 1 indicates perfect inequality, i.e., one household having all the income and rest having none. A measure of 0 indicates perfect equality, i.e., all households having an equal share of income.”
This indicator draws directly from reported data and cannot be re-summarized to custom report areas. For multi-county areas, the average population-weighted GINI index value is reported. For more information about this source, refer to the United States Census 2023 Household Income data briefing website.
Data Breakouts Available
- Income Inequality (GINI Index) by Year
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