Tag: Demography

A Science for Everyone, Community, Demography

Statistically Remote Doesn’t Mean Impossible

michaelmccurryphd

My post-Uvalde thoughts move toward hardening our own little school.  School shootings are always statistically unlikely.  The timeline at Uvalde shows that at 11:27, a teacher props the door open. It remains open for 6 minutes before the crazy little bastard enters the school.  He doesn’t close it – the door remains open and is the access point for police.  A safety protocol broke down.  The crazy little bastard had a six-minute window of opportunity.  Twenty-one people died and 17 more were wounded.  Six minutes.

In demography, our phrase is “Malthus only has to be right once.”  I listened to a Fed describing terrorist attacks  – “They have to get lucky once.  We have to get it right every day.”  The exercise showed how hard that was.  A teacher, secure in the misbelief that a statistically unlikely event wouldn’t happen, propped a door open.  For 6 minutes.  The crazy got in.  The statistically unlikely event happened.  We play poker hoping for statistically unlikely events to occur. 

It’s easy to look at the police failures – but the initial failure was the teacher who wedged the door open . . . secure in the belief that there was no risk in violating that simple safety protocol.  Staying alert, maintaining security against something that does not occur, day after day, is difficult. 

I can think of many situations where a teacher wouldn’t want to keep unlocking the door.  It’s Spring – the time when contracts are, or are not renewed.  We’ve had that this year at Trego – and seen a bit of hostility over it.  It gives me a perspective that, in Uvalde, the shooter gained access not through police failure, but through a teacher’s carelessness.  I can understand both carelessness and resentment.

I have forgotten the name of the teacher who left his female engineering students to be killed at the Montreal Polytechnique Massacre.  I hope he came to some sort of grips with his failure – I know I could not have accepted that decision had it been mine.  Perhaps the Uvalde teacher who spent 20 lives for easier access to the door can come to grips with that conduct.  I would hate to have to rationalize it had it been my blunder.

It is difficult to stay constantly on the alert for the statistically unlikely occurrence.  Years of boredom are eventually interrupted by a few minutes of stark terror.  Uvalde’s police, like Parkland’s, made poor choices – but the timeline shows that a teacher who propped the door open had the best opportunity to eliminate the shooter’s opportunity.  Was it just casual carelessness?  Was it carelessness coupled with resentment?  I do not know – but I have read the pricetag, and it was too high.

Community

It Isn’t One Citizen One Vote

michaelmccurryphd

When it comes to the House of Representatives, I’m a Constitutional scholar.  Specifically Article 1, Section 2 – “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

(Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.) (The previous sentence in parentheses was modified by the 14th Amendment, section 2.) The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.”

The lines highlighted in yellow govern the decennial Census and apportionment of Congresscritters.  Congresscritters are apportioned according to population – not according to the number of citizens a state has.  As you look at the data, you can see that one out of each seven people represented by a California Congresscritter isn’t a US Citizen. 

If Congress were to pass a law requiring seats in the House of Representatives be apportioned based on citizens instead of population, California would probably lose 5 seats, New York and Florida each 2, and New Jersey  and Illinois 1 each.  Somehow, I don’t think it will happen.

State demographics by citizenship status|
Citizenship status of residents, 2014

 State Total Population NativeForeign-born
Total		Foreign-born
Naturalized		Foreign-born
Non-citizen
Alabama4,817,6784,651,201166,47755,514110,963
 100.0%96.5%3.5%1.2%2.3%
Alaska728,300676,62051,68027,91023,770
 100.0%92.9%7.1%3.8%3.3%
Arizona6,561,5165,677,869883,647339,481544,166
 100.0%86.5%13.5%5.2%8.3%
Arkansas2,947,0362,811,266135,77040,38495,386
 100.0%95.4%4.6%1.4%3.2%
California38,066,92027,776,28410,290,6364,911,8995,378,737
 100.0%73.0%27.0%12.9%14.1%
Colorado5,197,5804,690,377507,203192,391314,812
 100.0%90.2%9.8%3.7%6.1%
Connecticut3,592,0533,101,593490,460235,507254,953
 100.0%86.3%13.7%6.6%7.1%
Delaware917,060840,18176,87935,52741,352
 100.0%91.6%8.4%3.9%4.5%
District of Columbia633,736545,11088,62634,48354,143
 100.0%86.0%14.0%5.4%8.5%
Florida19,361,79215,571,9633,789,8291,960,0091,829,820
 100.0%80.4%19.6%10.1%9.5%
Georgia9,907,7568,945,010962,746371,908590,838
 100.0%90.3%9.7%3.8%6.0%
Hawaii1,392,7041,143,424249,280140,906108,374
 100.0%82.1%17.9%10.1%7.8%
Idaho1,599,4641,503,82995,63534,22961,406
 100.0%94.0%6.0%2.1%3.8%
Illinois12,868,74711,081,8211,786,926838,686948,240
 100.0%86.1%13.9%6.5%7.4%
Indiana6,542,4116,229,726312,685112,699199,986
 100.0%95.2%4.8%1.7%3.1%
Iowa3,078,1162,934,406143,71054,01789,693
 100.0%95.3%4.7%1.8%2.9%
Kansas2,882,9462,687,052195,89468,325127,569
 100.0%93.2%6.8%2.4%4.4%
Kentucky4,383,2724,235,463147,80952,65395,156
 100.0%96.6%3.4%1.2%2.2%
Louisiana4,601,0494,419,407181,64272,250109,392
 100.0%96.1%3.9%1.6%2.4%
Maine1,328,5351,281,40647,12925,63121,498
 100.0%96.5%3.5%1.9%1.6%
Maryland5,887,7765,050,375837,401397,433439,968
 100.0%85.8%14.2%6.8%7.5%
Massachusetts6,657,2915,639,9251,017,366520,931496,435
 100.0%84.7%15.3%7.8%7.5%
Michigan9,889,0249,278,502610,522308,236302,286
 100.0%93.8%6.2%3.1%3.1%
Minnesota5,383,6614,980,116403,545193,791209,754
 100.0%92.5%7.5%3.6%3.9%
Mississippi2,984,3452,917,37466,97123,49843,473
 100.0%97.8%2.2%0.8%1.5%
Missouri6,028,0765,792,081235,995103,033132,962
 100.0%96.1%3.9%1.7%2.2%
Montana1,006,370985,85020,52010,8949,626
 100.0%98.0%2.0%1.1%1.0%
Nebraska1,855,6171,735,200120,41742,72177,696
 100.0%93.5%6.5%2.3%4.2%
Nevada2,761,5842,234,549527,035233,551293,484
 100.0%80.9%19.1%8.5%10.6%
New Hampshire1,321,0691,247,65773,41238,52934,883
 100.0%94.4%5.6%2.9%2.6%
New Jersey8,874,3746,969,9691,904,405989,166915,239
 100.0%78.5%21.5%11.1%10.3%
New Mexico2,080,0851,874,204205,88170,926134,955
 100.0%90.1%9.9%3.4%6.5%
New York19,594,33015,218,3854,375,9452,317,7872,058,158
 100.0%77.7%22.3%11.8%10.5%
North Carolina9,750,4059,009,170741,235240,268500,967
 100.0%92.4%7.6%2.5%5.1%
North Dakota704,925684,37020,5557,48413,071
 100.0%97.1%2.9%1.1%1.9%
Ohio11,560,38011,091,189469,191233,953235,238
 100.0%95.9%4.1%2.0%2.0%
Oklahoma3,818,8513,604,070214,78170,846143,935
 100.0%94.4%5.6%1.9%3.8%
Oregon3,900,3433,516,357383,986150,498233,488
 100.0%90.2%9.8%3.9%6.0%
Pennsylvania12,758,72911,976,626782,103401,469380,634
 100.0%93.9%6.1%3.1%3.0%
Rhode Island1,053,252915,234138,01870,04967,969
 100.0%86.9%13.1%6.7%6.5%
South Carolina4,727,2734,500,820226,45381,502144,951
 100.0%95.2%4.8%1.7%3.1%
South Dakota834,708810,30824,4009,09615,304
 100.0%97.1%2.9%1.1%1.8%
Tennessee6,451,3656,146,570304,795109,057195,738
 100.0%95.3%4.7%1.7%3.0%
Texas26,092,03321,795,0854,296,9481,454,6722,842,276
 100.0%83.5%16.5%5.6%10.9%
Utah2,858,1112,618,427239,68484,697154,987
 100.0%91.6%8.4%3.0%5.4%
Vermont626,358600,17826,18015,20110,979
 100.0%95.8%4.2%2.4%1.8%
Virginia8,185,1317,236,647948,484454,434494,050
 100.0%88.4%11.6%5.6%6.0%
Washington6,899,1235,978,429920,694427,201493,493
 100.0%86.7%13.3%6.2%7.2%
West Virginia1,853,8811,826,34127,54012,96914,571
 100.0%98.5%1.5%0.7%0.8%
Wisconsin5,724,6925,456,268268,424114,684153,740
 100.0%95.3%4.7%2.0%2.7%
Wyoming575,251555,91519,3367,06312,273
 100.0%96.6%3.4%1.2%2.1%
Source: United States Census Bureau, “Selected Characteristics of the Native and Foreign-Born Populations”
A Science for Everyone, Demography

Wells-Barnett Becoming Barbie

michaelmccurryphd

I note that Mattel is making a Barbie doll that honors Ida Wells-Barnett.

They note that she was a journalist, suffragette, and had a role in founding the NAACP – to me, her unusual strength was the use of statistics in her research on lynchings.  She deserves mention in her early role in social research and reliance on statistics.  Still, the article doesn’t include the quote that I find easy to remember:

I’m a Montanan.  My state’s legal tradition begins with vigilantes hanging a crooked sheriff and his minions.  In 1884, Granville Stuart organized another vigilance committee – now known as Stuart’s Stranglers – to end rustling.  In a short time, Stuart’s Stranglers killed at least 20 rustlers, and numbers up to 100 are written in some accounts.  By the end of the Summer, Granville Stuart was president of the Stockman’s Association.  Stuart’s activities, despite the poor record keeping, made 1884 the highest year for lynching white men in the US. (My readings suggest that the first recorded use of the numbers 3-7-77 was by Stuart’s Stranglers and not by the Vigilantes of Montana 20 years earlier)

Douglas Linder has published the data series Ida Wells started (maintained at Tuskegee) on lynchings by state and race. Clicking the link will give you an idea of how solid the lady’s research was – and how racist it was in some areas.

I’ll be looking for the Barbie – but I want mine to be holding a lever action Winchester.  She may not have been granted a graduate degree – but her work was important in developing American Sociology.

A Science for Everyone, Community, Demography

Our Communities by ACS Numbers

michaelmccurryphd

I listened to a comment about the median household income in Trego – and defaulted to my professional statement before retirement – “That’s American Community Survey data, and it’s not very good for small communities.”  When I checked it, the $36,458 median household income for Trego translates as “somewhere between $27,478 and $45,438.  ACS data has its uses, but it has to be used with a lot of caution.

So here’s a little ACS data on our communities – you can check for margin of error (MOE) here.   I wouldn’t recommend using any of the numbers without reviewing MOE – but just sharing the data shows the variance.  It’s safe to admit that my household was one selected for the ACS. With two retirees at home, I didn’t hurt Trego’s school enrollment rate, I raised the percentage of bachelors degree or above, kept the employment rate down, and raised the median age.

Trego CDPFortine CDPEureka CCDRexford Town
Population5153176,47078
Median Age60.527.950.153.3
Median Household Income$36,458$68,036$40,827$30,481
Bachelor’s Degree or more26.10%19.20%22.40%0.00%
Veterans6.80%16.20%12.90%16.80%
Poverty9.50%5.20%20.40%23.60%
School Enrollment97.80%72.30%81.90%100%
Employment Rate40.20%59.50%38.30%20.60%
Housing Units2831773,71673
Occupied Housing Units2371442,79646
Disabilities31.10%18.80%26.70%65.90%
Children under 189.30%32.50%22.10%13%

It looks like the Fortine sample drew some younger respondents.  Eureka CCD with a larger population and larger sample is probably closer to correct, and the town of Rexford data is probably close to useless because the small sample size almost guarantees sampling bias

Community

Tester for VP

michaelmccurryphd

Politics is a numbers game.  The quality of data has gone down as folks have learned to avoid or even lie to pollsters.  This time, I am looking at a different set of numbers – basically a thought experiment.  Since my skills set is demography, not political science, the assumptions may be in error and the conclusion not connected with the real world.  That said, here’s the idea. 

It seems inevitable that Biden is on his way out as  president.  Whether he just owns up to his declining mental facilities and resigns, is removed on 25th amendment grounds,  just physically collapses, or is impeached he is well past his “best used by” date.  That means President Kamala Harris and no vice-president.  Anything takes Kamala out and we have President Pelosi. 

Normally there would be a raft full of contenders – but these are not normal times.  The Dem majority in the Senate depends on VP Harris being able to cast a tie breaking vote.  President Harris will not have that ability.  She will have to nominate a vice-president who can be approved by a majority vote in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. 

Nancy Pelosi can whip the House Dems in line to approve just about anything as our new VP.  Right now, the house has 212 repugnants, 220 dims, and 3 vacancies.  The House of Representatives will pretty much approve anyone appointed by Harris – but the Senate is a different story.  Balanced 50-50, with President Harris you won’t have a majority leader and a minority leader any more.  Mitch McConnell’s power increases tremendously in this situation.  That changes the universe of potential vice-presidents.  Someone close to McConnell should share this with him – he’s not on my speed dial, and I am surely not on his.

McConnell could probably arrange 100% support for our next VP if he’s a democrat senator from a state with a republican governor.  Only 7 states have republican governors and democrat senators.  Massachusetts ain’t gonna happen.  Montana can.

That coarse calculation makes Tester’s chance one in six.  Financially, it would be a good deal – a senator’s salary is $174,000 and becoming VP would raise that to $235,100.  What Big Sandy farmer wouldn’t accept a promotion that brought a $60,000 raise?  A 35% raise for the last 3 years before retirement would jack the pension.  My bet is he’d take the gig if it were offered.

I’m not sure what advantages that Vice-President Tester would bring to Montana – but he would have to be better for us than the last four or five VPs have been.  I do believe that a Montana farmer could do more for the nation as Vice-President.  We’re in a spot where it just might happen.  In 2016 the choice was Hillary or Trump.  In 2020 the choice was Trump or Biden.  At least I kind of like Tester – and Bob Brown assures me that he shoots gophers, and is a good shot from prone.  Let’s get ready to lobby – it might just happen. 

A Science for Everyone, Community, Demography

Measuring Migration

michaelmccurryphd

When you work with Census data, migration numbers can be very precise – but the 10 years between each Census often make the data obsolete.  As demographers, we had to find ways to work around that – and U-Haul had the websites that let me better understand and explain migration.

For example, if I price renting a 15’ truck in Bakersfield, California, heading to Eureka, Montana, I get a price quote of $5,173 today.  On the other hand, it costs $1,109 to rent the same truck in Eureka and drive it to Bakersfield.

If I want to see beautiful Bend, Oregon in the rear view mirror of my 15’ rental truck, the website tells me the trip to Eureka, MT is $3,052.  Renting the same truck in Eureka, to go to Bend is only $654.

I didn’t learn to abuse U-Haul’s website in a classroom – I got the general idea while riding a bus seated alongside a very successful retarded guy.  He made a living riding the bus – back then there was a pass that was good for six months travel in country – and then driving a car or small truck back to Denver.  He may not have completed high school – but he gave me the foundation of a method to quantify migration.  Obviously, Bakersfield and Bend have more people trying to leave, and Eureka has more inmigration. 

If we look at the trip from Minneapolis to Eureka, it’s $1,703.  Eureka to Minneapolis is $1,362.  Park City, Utah showed up as $990 to Eureka, while Eureka to Park City was $495. 

It provides a better feel for migration in central locations like Park City – where you can go in any direction.  You can’t go north from Eureka in this time of Covid – and you can’t drive west from California.  Still, it gives data in something resembling a ratio – the challenge the rental truck industry has is getting the trucks from destination locations (inmigration) back to the places they came from (outmigration) without hiring my friend with the Greyhound pass.

TaxFoundation.org gives last year’s data, and it is massaged and compiled from more moving companies.  Guess what?  The top destination state (inmigration) is Idaho – and Idaho has a lot of similarities to western Montana.  Oregon was a destination state – and still needs the rental trucks from Eureka to keep things going.  I think the last person renting a truck to leave New Jersey might want to turn the lights off as he or she pays the last toll to drive out.

I’ve rented U-Haul trucks a couple of times – but the company has provided me a lot of comparative data on migration during my career.  It’s still science, and it’s still numbers driven. 

Community, Demography

Economic Drivers and Housing Shortages

michaelmccurryphd

Back in 1960, Lincoln County was timber, mining and farming.  There was a fairly stable population, jobs were available, and both small and large ranches.  Along with the Corps of Engineers planning Libby dam, and looking at flooding the lands near the Kootenai, by the middle of the decade our communities became boomtowns, needing housing for the newcomers who would be working on the tunnel, the railroad relocation, the highway relocation, and Libby dam itself. 

I was in high school – and Dad was looking at a trailer court, pretty much where the trailer court is today in Trego.  His advantage in negotiating with the company that had the contract for the tunnel was me being in high school.  Gail Tisdell, a classmate  who worked at Lynn’s Cafe over lunch hour, kept me informed about the company honchos lunch table discussions.  Long story short, we wound up with a trailer court built pretty much to the specifications they brought in from San Mateo.  Jack Price put in a trailer court down by the substation.  Up the creek were two more: Westwood Acres and S&S.  All told, Trego went from being virtually trailer-free to about 200 spaces in the course of a year. 

Likewise, when the tunnel and the railroad relocation ended, so did the largest trailer courts.  Across the county, we had a surplus of trailer spaces that would last for decades.  Many weren’t built to those California standards – I recollect septic tanks built from laminated cull 2×4’s.  The materials were cheap, the construction sub-marginal, and a place that had once housed 50 families emptied and left to collapse.

A half-century later, watching the ads and listening to people looking for housing shows me that we’re in a new housing situation.  Kind of a 55-year cycle – in 1910, all it took to resolve a housing shortage was an axe, a crosscut saw, a froe and a chisel.  In 1965, the spirit of capitalism moved in to develop trailer courts across the county as labor boomed in construction projects.  Now, we’re looking at a county that the USDA Economic Research Service lists as Government dependent. 

It says something when your county’s largest economic drivers are federal and state government employment – the definition is that over 14% of annual earnings are from federal or state government jobs.

Additionally, the ERS lists Lincoln county as a “low employment” county – and the definition is “less than 65 percent of county residents 25-64 were employed.”  The examples are often anecdotes instead of data – a friend from my youth, who hasn’t migrated out for work, explained that his highest paid years were in the seventies.  We’ve been migrating out for work, then returning, for several generations.  It makes a difference in the statistics. 

If you note the classification as a retirement destination county – “where the number of residents age 60 and older grew by 15 percent or more between the 2000 and 2010 censuses due to net migration.”  Home building, home purchases, are a bit easier for folks who are moving in at the end of their careers.  Some of our retirees are returning.  Others, not originally from here, still have the same motivation – in both cases, “going home to a place he’d never been before” is somewhat appropriate.

Anyway, watching the rental market shows that the world has changed.  An axe, saw and froe no longer combine with a strong back and a willingness to work to build a home.  There are safer, less regulated places for venture capital than building a lot of housing rapidly.  Young families compete with retirees – and it’s a lot easier to buy or build that second or third house when you’re holding the check for the house you sold in Oregon, or Washington, or California.

Community

On trusting the experts

michaelmccurryphd

I have changed the trapdoor into the crawlspace under my house.  The builder was, is, a better carpenter than I.  Yet over the past 4 years, I have never been satisfied by the trapdoor he built.  He has built many houses – but I have gone into the crawlspace many times, as I worked with the water lines.  Sometime during those trips below the main floor, my expertise on that particular part of the house surpassed his – and this winter, I realized that in order to do things right, I had to strip the trapdoor out, then rebuild it so that things would work better.  The fact that his skills in carpentry exceeded mine was irrelevant.  My understanding of the requirements of this particular trapdoor exceeded his.

In my last job, I was accepted as an expert in demography.  And I can confidently state that expertise in demography requires understanding three things – births, deaths, and migration.  From those three inputs, I created models that projected future populations.  I’m looking forward to the publication of the 2020 Census, so I can see how closely my models matched reality.  Time was that demography needed a University’s library to find the data you need – now, an internet connection makes it possible to be an expert almost anywhere.

P.O. Ackley, who started the gunsmithing program at Trinidad State always denied being a gun expert – and he basically wrote the book on the topic.  I’ve encountered several experts on guns, but never one with credentials equal to Ackley.  Perhaps one of the most important aspects of expertise is knowing how much you don’t know.   

The covid pandemic has brushed alongside my expertise – disease has a definite correlation with death, and some relationship with migration.  Likewise, it brushes alongside the expertise of the medical doctor.  I’ve watched a pandemic handled by politicians and MDs (and there isn’t always a difference) with the implication that we need to follow the science and the experts.  The problem is, it’s easy to evaluate past data.  When it’s a new topic, and you’re looking at partial and fragmented data, it’s more of a challenge,

At the onset of the pandemic, Fauci wasn’t recommending masks – by June he was.  He’s changed his numbers several times on herd immunity and vaccinations.  I would prefer experts who were consistent and correct – but I have built a better trap door that works with the data I have. 

A Science for Everyone, Demography

Death Rates by Country

michaelmccurryphd

One of the more useful publications to compare nations is the CIA World Factbook.  While we tend to think of the CIA as secret agents, a lot of them are data geeks crunching numbers.  The data they develop about each country is impressive, and like the US Census, the CIA sets the standard for the most accessible and reliable information.  When I started using it, I needed a land-grant college library.  Now, I click World Factbook.

National death rates in 2018 ranged from 19.3 per 1000 in South Sudan down to 1.6 per 1000 in Quatar.   The reasons vary – a higher median age (Japan is 48.36) combined with healthy living and good health care can still have relatively low death rates (Japan was 9.9 in 2018).  The explanation is Demographic Transition theory – in the old days we had high birth rates and high infant/youth mortality.  The second stage occurred with health care improvements – birth rates remained high, but death rates dropped.  Stage 3 showed lower birth rates and death rates continuing to drop, but more slowly.  The fourth stage maintains the lower birth rates, but in an aging population the diseases change – in the US, the big killers are heart disease and cancer.

Lesotho, in Southern Africa, has the second highest death rate – high infant mortality (44.6 deaths per 1000 births), the world’s second highest HIV rate.  A dozen years ago, I first encountered https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/ and the website gets increasingly useful.  It isn’t that the covid is so insignificant in Lesotho, it’s that Diarrhea is so much more prevalent.  Click the link – and check out the demographic factors for your own country.  In the US, it shows life expectancy changes since 1960:

US life expectancy from World Life Expectancy

The personal computer has taken demography from being a science that need a major university’s library facilities in my undergraduate days into being a science with the data available to a Fortine resident who has insomnia at 3:00 am. 

Community, Demography

When the official data isn’t good data

michaelmccurryphd

As I was retiring, the American Community Survey(ACS) was replacing the long-form Census questionnaire.  There is merit to the argument that a survey can provide data that is as good as a form that one out of six people fill out – both are, after all, actually surveys.  Still, as a rural sociologist whose primary duties were rural demography, I wasn’t comfortable with the American Community Survey results – the sampling size was too small.

Now, I can access data that compiles five years worth of estimates – so here is some data on Rexford, Eureka, Fortine and Trego, by zip code, in two separate five-year conglomerates:

2012-2016Rexford
59930		Eureka
59917		Fortine
59918		Trego
59934
Total Population5664,425584562
5 to 9212823452
10 to 14353052249
Median (Average) Age58.043.650.749.2
Per capita income$22,377$18,799$21,203$25,999
2015-2019Rexford
59930		Eureka
59917		Fortine
59918		Trego
59934
Total Population6584,769747476
5 to 9–53212–
10 to 14502163520
Median (Average) Age56.046.847.260.4
Per capita income$13,438$22,867$28,753$26,671

The American Community Survey is a well-conducted survey.  The data is correct, in both cases, within the limits of the survey.  The small samples, however, can create some large swings and make the data less useful.  I have been looking forward to reviewing the Trego data since I was selected to return the ACS survey.  Trego’s median age went up 11 years.  The population dropped by 15%.  The youth population plunged.  Meanwhile Fortine incomes increased by 36%, as Rexford plunged into the depths of poverty.  All the survey data is correct – but sampling bias, due to the small number of participants, has given us data we can’t use.

I still prefer the old, time-consuming long form results over the ACS.