Travis County Commissioners Court
January 29, 2008
Item 13
Thirteen is to receive presentation on Travis County snapshot from american community 2006 report. Thank you very much.
>> judge, Commissioners, as you know, the Travis County health and human services resitch and planning division monitors community conditions in Travis County and central Texas area and as a part of that responsibility has prepared for you an analysis of the american community survey. And so I have with me to my far left cory darling, senior planner with research and planning at hss and right next to me is rachel koff who is a planner also at research lan--planning.
>> good morning, the analysis we are here to present is based on the community survey. I know most of you are probably already familiar with the acs but we like to start as a refresher our presentation with breer overview of the community survey. It is one of many surveys conducted by the u.s. Census bureau. The most well-known is probably the census conducted once every ten years. The american community survey was lotted earlier the decade and was expanded since. Beginning in 2010 it will replace the on long form the ten-year u.s. Census. The research and planning division as well as many other here in Travis County use the american community surveys as a good accurate and timely demographic data source about Travis County. Because it's conductd on an ongoing basis and releases data annually this makes it a good source for local current demographic data for community like ours changing quickly. The data we're here to present today is publicly available on the website but can be difficult for individuals to interpret. This last point is based on result from a recent survey of data users and some of the respondants noted limitations including time available, navigating large amounts of data or technical capacity issues. Based on on the feedback we considered how to revise the product to create the process useful and accessible form mat for users. Based on that, this year's report is titled the 2006 Travis County 123457 --smat shot from the american community survey. It's based on the analysis of the american community survey data. Year we reformatted the report as annual chart book and included three foe use areas, social, economic and housing. Three objectives as shown on the slide. We hope we can pry provide a point in time snapshot rather than a trend analysis over time. For the most part this year's report features the 2006 data. We shrouded state and national statistics to provide comparison and context. We also do note trends when a clear trend does exist. This chart book is intended to show at a the current state of affairs for Travis County. In order to make the report as useful as we can to as many users as possible we have slowsen to summarize community conditions rather than to be specific? Nature. We hope the chart book is inform ty and reproduceable to our reader ship. The social characteristics of the written report covers topics you the on the slide. We had highlight the ones shown in the red boxes. First slide shows the Travis County population distributed by educational attainment level. We know that Travis County continues to have a highly educated population in in comparison to state and national figures, proportionately more resident have a college degree and fewer lack a high school diploma. As you can see a the right-hand two bars on the side, 42 percent of Travis County residents have a bachelor's degree or higher and this come parse with about 25 percent of texans and 27 percent of americans. Other side of the spectrum, 15 percent of residents report having less than a high school diploma. This compares with about 21 percent of texans and 16 percent of americans. Topic of migration defined mthis case as residents one year ago is new addition to this year's analysis. Overall we find Travis County is a very mobile community. You can see in the chart, three quarter of the community's population lives in the same house as it did a year ago, a little more than 15 percent lived in a different house in Austin or Travis County and ten percent was newly arrived or returning from elsewhere. On this side several variables related to language. The medium brown bars indicate language spoken at home. One third of the population, about 3 percent, or about--32 percent or 271,000 residents speak a long other than edge leisure at home. About 34 percent of texans speak a long other than english at home. The pie charts indicate ability to speak english. Overall 58 percent of residents who speak a language other than english at home also speak english very well while about 42 percent speak less than very well. Language is one area where you note a clear trend. Overall the number as well as the share of Travis County residents speaking a long other than english at home has grown since the year 2000 the. Next portion of our presentation highlights several economic characteristics. Within the economic characteristics we looked at different cross tabluations for some of the variables. For example, explored poverty by age, sex and household type and employment status by age and educational attainment. We are look at a few of them. The chart on this slide shows median household income beginning with census 2000, 1999 through 2006. All dollars figures shown are in 2006 inflation add just dollars. Following a downward trend, the median household income has fluctuated between 2003 and 2006. The 2006 median income is nearly $6,000 lower than in 1999. This reflects a ten percent deies between 1999 and 2006 the.
>> do we know the reason?
>> we could look into it. We don't know the specific reason. I think it has, with inflation, the cost of living has gone up and the cost of wages have pretty much stayed the same.
>> next chart shows the Travis County population distributed according to the poverty threshold. Shows the residents living at or below 100 percent of poverty as well as those at or below 150 percent of poverty and 200 percent of poverty. In Travis County an estimated 137,700 individuals, about 15 percent of the total population, e live in households with next below the poverty threshold. This refers to the very lightest slice of the pie. When expanding the lens 200 percent of poverty, which is combining the three lightest slices of the pie, almost a third of residents, estimated 292,500 individuals, fall under this threshold. As geographic comparison, the share of Travis County below 100 percent of poverty is lower than that of the state but higher than that of the nation. While 15 percent of Travis County individuals are below 100 percent of poverty, 17 percent of texans and 13 percent of the american people are below this threshold. This chart shows the labor farce by educational attainment levels and the unemployment rates for each of the educational groups. The brown columns represent individuals between the ages of 25 and 64. Each bar rents a different educational attainment level from less than high school on the far left to bachelor's degree or higher on the far right. The bars correspond with the left axis in the labor force. Circles with percentages represent percent unemployed within each attain am level group. They correspond with the right axis label percent unemployed. As cory highlighted, Travis County has a fairly educated workforce. This slide shows unemployment decreases as education level increases. Employment is highest at about eight percent among those with less than a high school degree. Lowest at three percent among those with a bachelor's degree or higher. Housing section of the report describes the county's housing characteristics that you see on the screen. We will show you one of them here today. This slide shows the populations of rents on the left and owners on the right. The pipe chart shows how much of their income goes towards covering housing costs. Households spending 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs are defined as having housing costs burdens. A large percentage of rents and owners in Travis County experience a housing cost burden however more renters are cost burdens than owners. Almost half at had 4 percent of renter households spend 30 percent or more of their income on rent and comparatively close to one third of own households spend 30 percent of their income or more on housing costs. Looking forward, chart book can be accessed on line at the county website. The report will be posted there tomorrow. The annual chart book will be updated every year with current data as released from the census bureau am the research and planning division anticipates doing a trend analysis every five years. New this year, the research and planning division is introducing a service to assist with data mining and to provide technical assistance on accessing and using data like what you have seen here today. The census bureau does provide a wealth of data and we tried to capture an overview of the community. We can also assist with specific data needs that relate to data we already use or track. For more information or questions about this report, please e-mail us at the address on the slide which is rnp underscore hhs at co.travis.cx.
>> we don't have the looking forward slide.
>> we're sorry about that.
>> that's why the e-mail addresses are.
>> we added that yesterday.
>> we don't want you all trying to hide the address from us. Questions? This is good information.
>> it is a lot of good information.
>> we are doing quite well in some areas but almost another side of the coin in all of them, isn't there?
>> that's the way it seems, yes.
>> well educated on one hand. Does that not finish high school figure include dropouts in.
>> yes, it does.
>> that's the population that we serve with capital idea and some of the workforce folks that we buy services from. Especially those that are dropouts. They get a second chance by getting their g e d and then going on to ac c. So that's where I make the connection there.
>> that would be correct. The adult basic education would include those ged services and ultimately testing.
>> good information. See the two of you all in another year.
>> if not before.
>> with that I move that we recess until 1 :30.
>> second.
>> all in favor. That passes by unanimous vote.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 8:09 PM