Hello. I seek data for the cost of utilities (housing). Ideas? Thank you!
Hi Gwendolyn -
You might look into Regional Price Parities (RPPs) from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).Regional Price Parities, Real Personal Consumption Expenditures, and Real Personal Income |…
Apparently the ACS has some new (2021 5 year data) tables with various monthly household costs
B25132-B25135
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/technical-documentation/table-and-geography-changes/2021/5-year.html
the data is in dollars and it is "binned" into categories. If you want a percent of household income or percent of household expenses you can't divide using this data. The ratio of averages is not the average of the ratios.
If you want to do things for a PUMA then you can use the PUMS data to do the division on individual records. PUMS codebook: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/pums/data_dict/PUMS_Data_Dictionary_2021.pdf ELEP electricity cost (monthly) GASP gas cost (monthly) FULP fuel cost (other than gas or electric). ELEFP (is fuel included in condo cost etc) Don't forget the inflation adjustment factor ADJHSE and there are others (income, total housing costs HFL heating fuel, etc. There are many variables associated with housing costs.
Dave
A little background on other surveys. Just to comment on BEA and BLS stats. None of their surveys have anything close to the coverage of the ACS data. Often the BLS (bureau of labor statistics) and the BEA (bureau of economic analysis) use the ACS data in their calculations, as do many other departments that compile stats. The current population survey (CPS) collects useful stats but they have a smaller coverage than the ACS. For business stats, In conjunction with the Department of Commerce the Census (ABS Annual Business Survey) conducts a business survey (I know because I get the survey). They have a pretty large sample size but maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the ACS sample size.