I’m using American Community Survey data from 2006-2015 to explain income levels of different immigrant and refugee groups. Is there anyway to construct or incorporate variables like median income of metro area, county, or PUMA in my analysis?
Yes performing analysis at an aggregated geographic level is certainly possible, although these statistics are not readily available via IPUMS USA. Rather, IPUMS USA has a number of geographic variables that can be helpful to you in performing this task. I’m not sure what software you are using to run your analysis, but in any software you can calculate summary statistics by some selected criteria. In your case, for example, you’ll want to calculate median income for all records who reside in some metro area, county, or PUMA.
Alternatively, IPUMS NHGIS provides ready made tables of popular statistics aggregated at various levels of geography. If you are just looking for some summary statistics, this may be a helpful resource for you.
I hope this helps. Let us know if you have any further questions.
Thanks Jeff. Responding to your response:
JB: Yes performing analysis at an aggregated geographic level is certainly possible, although these statistics are not readily available via IPUMS USA. Rather, IPUMS USA has a number of geographic variables that can be helpful to you in performing this task. I’m not sure what software you are using to run your analysis, but in any software you can calculate summary statistics by some selected criteria. In your case, for example, you’ll want to calculate median income for all records who reside in some metro area, county, or PUMA.
Alternatively, IPUMS NHGIS provides ready made tables of popular statistics aggregated at various levels of geography. If you are just looking for some summary statistics, this may be a helpful resource for you.
I hope this helps. Let us know if you have any further questions.
CWS: Yes, I understand I can calculate median income levels for PUMAs, but how do I get this outcome to being a geographic level variable (e.g. MedianIncomePUMA). I’m using spss.
Ah, I understand your question now. In SPSS if you go to the Data tab and click “Aggregate”, this will open a dialog box that will perform this prociedure for you. Add PUMA into the Break Variables and HHINCOME into the Summires of Variables. Be sure to change the function to median. Click “Ok” and you should be all set.
Thank you!!!