Innovation
Median Household Income
Description: This indicator comes from the decennial census. In recent censuses, roughly one-in-eight households received the long form of the census questionnaire, which included many detailed questions on social and economic characteristics. The income question asked for income in the prior calendar year (1969, 1979, 1989, 1999).
Data from the last four censuses are presented on the Innovation Indicators dashboard for the United States, Arizona, and the state’s 15 counties. Unadjusted and inflation-adjusted dollars are presented, as well as the inflation-adjusted percent change and the percentage of the national average. The data are inflation adjusted using the gross domestic product (GDP) implicit price deflator. The inflation-adjusted figures are expressed in terms of 2006 dollars.
Rationale: An innovative environment should lead to improvements in productivity, which in turn should result in increases in prosperity. While median household income is one of the broadest measures of economic well-being, it includes components that are independent from local economic policy, such as retirement benefits.
Data Sources: U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau. The data from the 1970, 1980 and 1990 censuses were obtained from http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/state/state1.html. (The inflation-adjusted data from this site were not used.) For the data from the 2000 census, http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTGeoSearchByListServlet?ds_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U&_lang=en&_ts=211389021910 was accessed. The GDP implicit price deflator is available from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/SelectTable.asp?Selected=Y (Table 1.1.9).
Comments on the Quality of the Data: The data are based on a sample and thus are subject to survey error. Moreover, compared to other census questions, a larger proportion of respondents refuse to respond to, or provide misinformation about, questions regarding income.
Income gains vary with the economic cycle. Thus, the 10-year percent change in income calculated from the decennial censuses may not be a good measure of the change in income if the census dates occur at differing points in the economic cycle.
