On December 19th, 2024, the U.S. Census Bureau released their vintage 2024 population estimates for the nation and states. This estimates series incorporates a methodological change to how the Census Bureau estimated net international migration, resulting in substantially higher nationwide estimates of net international migration over the last several years.
Read MoreIn May of 2024, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Program (PEP) released their vintage 2023 population estimates for Connecticut’s towns. However, there are some important caveats to keep in mind when interpreting Connecticut’s population estimates. In this blog post, we discuss some errors and adjustments in the Census Bureau's population estimates for Connecticut and provide guidance for data users.
Read MoreThe blended base is the estimate of the national, state, and county populations by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin as of April 1st, 2020, that the Census Bureau has used in their population estimates since the 2020 Decennial Census. The blended base uses population totals from the 2020 Decennial Census, but the distribution of the population by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin comes from other data sources.
In this blog post, we will:
Provide an introduction to the blended base and why it matters
Compare Connecticut’s blended base population estimates by age and sex to the 2020 Decennial Census counts for the state
Discuss the future of the population estimates base
Dive into more details on the blended base methodology for those who are interested
In the summer of 2023, the CT Head Start Collaboration Office, within the Office of Early Childhood, contracted with CTData to conduct a needs assessment of all Head Start and Early Head Start programs in the state. This blog post describes our work on the needs assessment and shares some key findings.
Read MoreConnecticut’s Department of Public Health (DPH) has determined that the Census Bureau’s vintage 2022 population estimates are artificially high for certain Connecticut towns in 2021 and 2022 due to pandemic-related issues with the counts of residents in group quarters facilities.
This blog post:
discusses what happened;
explains the impact on population estimates for specific towns, planning regions and the state;
delineates which population estimates the state will be using for official purposes; and
provides some recommendations for data users on which version of the population estimates to use, and where to find these estimates.
To protect respondents’ privacy, for the 2020 Decennial Census the Census Bureau is using a modern disclosure avoidance approach called differential privacy. In brief, differential privacy adds statistical noise—small random additions or subtractions—into the data to reduce the risk that someone could reidentify any person or household.
In this post, we will: (1) describe how differential privacy is applied to the 2020 Decennial Census data; (2) review the Census Bureau’s guidance for 2020 Decennial Census data users; (3) provide an overview of the summary metrics file released by the Census Bureau; and (4) discuss some illustrative examples of the amount of error introduced to certain counts as reported in the summary metrics file.
Read MoreIn 2020, the Census Bureau made some important changes to how they collect and process race and ethnicity data. These changes were intended to better capture the increasingly diverse racial and ethnic identities of the U.S. population, while still following the 1997 Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity. However, these changes also raise some questions about the validity of the Census Bureau’s “Two or More Races” classification in 2020, particularly for Hispanic and Latino individuals. They also complicate comparisons with race data from before 2020, making it difficult to assess change over time. In this blog post, we discuss the consequences of the Census Bureau’s recent changes to how they collect and process race and ethnicity data, as well as the proposed revisions to the OMB standards for the classification of federal data on race and ethnicity.
Read MoreToday, the Census Bureau released the first postcensal population estimates for Connecticut’s nine planning regions. These nine planning regions are the new county-equivalent geographic units that the Census Bureau will be using for Connecticut (see our earlier blog post on this topic). This is the first Census Bureau data product to be released using Connecticut’s new county-equivalent geographic units.
Read MoreThe 2020 Decennial Census faced unprecedented challenges: the COVID-19 pandemic, political interference, natural disasters, and the implementation of a new approach to privacy protection called differential privacy. We invited two experts to share what this means for using Census 2020 data. Amy O’Hara is a Research Professor in the Massive Data Institute and Executive Director of the Federal Statistical Research Data Center at Georgetown University. Elizabeth Garner is the State Demographer at the Colorado State Demography Office.
Read MoreThis week marks the end of Hispanic Heritage Month, a reminder for the nation to recognize and celebrate our Hispanic and Latino community members.
In this blog post, we share a profile of Connecticut’s large and vibrant Hispanic and Latino population using data from the 2010 and 2020 Decennial Census and the 2021 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year estimates.
Read MoreOn August 16th, the U.S. Census Bureau released coverage estimates for housing units from the 2020 Post-Enumeration Survey (PES). These results provide insight into the accuracy of the 2020 Census counts of housing units (not to be confused with counts of people). The coverage estimates are provided nationally, by region and state, and by type of housing unit (e.g., single unit versus multiunit and owner- versus renter-occupied) and characteristics of the householder (e.g., race and ethnicity).
This blog post reviews key findings for housing unit coverage estimates nationally, and for Connecticut and other states.
Read MoreOn July 25th, the U.S. Census Bureau in collaboration with Harvard University released a new interactive data tool on young adult migration. The data tool tracks patterns of migration between all 741 commuting zones in the U.S. from childhood (measured at age 16) to young adulthood (measured at age 26), for individuals with a Social Security Number who were born in the U.S. between 1984 and 1992.
Migration patterns are provided for the full sample and disaggregated by parental income quintile and by four categories of race and ethnicity (Hispanic, non-Hispanic Asian, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White).
In this blog post, we report some findings from the tool on migration patterns for Connecticut residents.
Read MoreThe Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO) data are an experimental data product developed by the Census Bureau that provides earnings and employment outcomes for college and university graduates by degree level, degree major, and post-secondary institution. The data are generated by matching university transcript data from participating universities with a national database of jobs compiled by the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program (LEHD) at the Census Bureau.
Read MoreWhen comparing the 5-year estimates of American Community data between 2011-2015 and 2016-2020, CTData has found:
A majority of towns experience a decrease in population
Home values decrease while rent increases
Women continue to earn only 80 cents on the dollar compared to men
Education levels have increased
Working from home is becoming increasingly common
Explore the data, as well as more topics, with this ACS 2020 roundup!
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