Renter Cost Burden ACS 2006-2010: Find Rates/Counts by Income for 400+ Oregon Counties and Places.

American Community Survey 5 year data for 2006-2010 was published last week, and I put together a new Excel workbook HERE that shows comparisons of renter cost burdens by income levels for more than 400 Oregon counties and places. 

Cost Burden Lookup Worksheet With Graphs

In far left column, users can select from pull down list up to 12 Oregon places or counties for side by side comparisons (they are organized in alpha order). By default the geographies chosen are all Oregon CDBG entitlement communities, but you can select geographies of choice. Selection of geographies is the ONLY interaction you need in order to see ALL the values in this worksheet (all other cells are protected to prevent against inadvertent data entry; you can however select and print the graphs).

The table of the left in this worksheet shows by income the percentage of renters in that income group who have cost burdens. The table on the right shows the number of renters by income group with cost burden AND the share of all renters with cost burdens with incomes below $35,000. 

Data for the geography selected for the first row also appears in the graph below, so if you want to graph a particular geography select it for the first row.

Data B25074 Worksheet

A second worksheet in the workbook includes all of the data I downloaded and used to construct the primary worksheet. (Table B25074 from the ACS). It does not include any of my calculations, just the raw data as I downloaded it from the American Fact Finder website. This worksheet is not copy protected.

Some Observations: 

1. The percentage of renters with cost burdens drops off dramatically as income increases. Using Clackamas County as an example, 81% of renters with incomes between $20,000 and $34,999 were cost burdened, but for renters with incomes between $50,000-$74,999 that rental cost burden rate drops to 12%: So, in Clackamas County, renter households with incomes between $20,000 and $34,999 were nearly 7 times as likely to be cost burdened as renters with incomes between $50,000 -$74,999.
2. Because of the significantly higher incidence of cost burden at lower income levels, the share of ALL cost burdened renters with incomes below incomes of $35,000  is very high. In Clackamas County, 83% of all cost burdened renters had incomes below $35,000.

Notes: 

• The Cost Burden Lookup worksheet only includes estimates; if you want to see margin of errors and counts of all renters look at the data worksheet. 
• I computed rent burden %'s by including only those renter households where rent burdens were shown. If I had included renters where cost burden had not been determined the rent burden percentages in each income category would have been lower. My method I believe more accurately reflects cost burden rates by limiting the universe of renters to those where cost burden data is known.
• As always, if you run into any data errors or discrepancies please do email me or leave a comment on this post.(I encourage you to cross check data in the Lookup worksheet with the Data worksheet).
• Excel Downloading Tip:This workbook was created in Excel 2007/2010 format. Some users report they cannot directly view Excel files in this format from within their browser and/or that Excel files they save end up with a compressed .zip file extension. My suggestion is to RIGHT CLICK and save the file to your PC. Then navigate to the file you downloaded and look at its file extension. IF it appears as .ZIP extension, change the .ZIP extension to an Excel 2007/2010 extension (.xlsx), and THEN open the file with Excel 2007/2010.
   Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.