Kids Count Data Center

Definitions: Medianfamily income data include only households with children under age 18 who meetthe U.S. Census Bureau definition of a family.The U. S. Census Bureau defines a family as a household that includes ahouseholder and one or more people living in the same household who are relatedto the household by birth, marriage or adoption.

Data Source: Data for this measure come from the U.S. Census Bureau's American FactFinder, 2005-2007, 2006-2008, 2007-2009 and 2008-2010 American Community Survey (ACS) 3-YearEstimates.

Footnotes: The 2008-2010 ACS data release marked the fourth time that 3-yearestimates were released for areas with populations of 20,000 andgreater. The ACS 2008-2010 data were collected during calendar years 2008, 2009, and 2010. The ACS 2007-2009 data were collected during calendar years2007, 2008, and 2009. The ACS 2006-2008 data were collected duringcalendar years 2006, 2007, and 2008. The ACS 2005-2007 data werecollected during calendar years 2005, 2006 and 2007.

The 3-year ACS estimates represent the average characteristics over the3-year period of time, and therefore are less current than 1-year ACSestimates. However, these estimates are more reliable because they arebased on a larger sample size. The 3-year estimates are also availablefor more geographic areas because they are published for populations of20,000 or greater, while 1-year estimates are only published forpopulations of 65,000 or greater. More information about 1-year versus3-year ACS surveys and estimates are available online at http://www.census.gov/acs/www/data_documentation/documentation_main/.