Poverty Dashboard - any feedback is appreciated

I have two poverty dashboards based on ACS5 data, one has a state filter, one just a full listing of counties. No prior year because of COVID etc, so I'll wait till 2022 comes out and put 2022 vs 2021 data in. I might put in a little more effort, but I also want a housing dashboard, gov programs (SSI, UI,SNAP etc.), Race, Grandparents and maybe a few more. Not looking for perfect, but just some good recaps.What I really hoped to find when I first look for Census data. They both look about the same so I'm only posting one.

https://public.tableau.com/views/Poverty_by_County2/Poverty_by_County?:language=en-US&publish=yes&:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link

Thanks!

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  • It might be helpful to know who your prospective audience and use case for this is. It's helpful that you provided baseline US numbers for context (state might be useful as well). I'd consider including counts in addition to percents; more people (or is it households?) in poverty live in Contra Costa County, CA (at 8.2%) than Trinity County, CA (at 22.5%). And it would be helpful to have definitions of your columns (what does "H" mean? Are these households or individuals?) I don't think the "Key Diff" columns are necessary, since they essentially repeat information already provided. Also, from a policy perspective, I've never found the Gini index to be useful at a local level (as opposed to national). Higher wealth disparities (seems bad) is another way of saying less wealth segregation (seems good).

    Also as a reminder, you shouldn't compare 5-year estimates with overlapping years (ie. you can compare 2018-2022 with 2013-2017, but not with 2017-2022). You're essentially comparing the sample of the last year of one estimate with that of the first year of the other, and it's too small a sample to be significant.

  • Thanks for the feedback. Right now I'm sharing it with country health departments in CA, but am hoping it gets Broad use. I need to be more clear on pop vs households and H means really high vs US and also needs clarification or something. Column width sucks in tableau. Some people really like the repeated US numbers and diff Columns, but I'm flexible to all feedback. Gini is just put in there to make poverty more complete, I may drop it. When 2022 comes out I will compare 2022 acs5 vs 2021 acs5, not a single year, and SAIPE might come later down the line.

Reply
  • Thanks for the feedback. Right now I'm sharing it with country health departments in CA, but am hoping it gets Broad use. I need to be more clear on pop vs households and H means really high vs US and also needs clarification or something. Column width sucks in tableau. Some people really like the repeated US numbers and diff Columns, but I'm flexible to all feedback. Gini is just put in there to make poverty more complete, I may drop it. When 2022 comes out I will compare 2022 acs5 vs 2021 acs5, not a single year, and SAIPE might come later down the line.

Children
  • When 2022 comes out I will compare 2022 acs5 vs 2021 acs5

    You really should not do that. 

    People who know what they're talking about are taking the time to give you good advice, at your request. 

    If you're going to do whatever what you want regardless, why ask for the feedback? 

  • OK I misunderstood/ misread your comment,  I thought you were saying don't use 5 year vs 1 year. I am completely flexible to using the last 5 year range, and value all feedback especially in this forum. I do appreciate it. Responding to these on my phone during my dinner break (I work 1-9:30. Not ideal, but generates progress.

  • The issue might be clearer if you refer to each of them with their full range, 2018-2022 and 2017-2021. If you compare the two, you're not comparing 2022 with 2021. Sometimes we'll use the final year as a shorthand, but not on anything public. It's a five-year estimate and each year carries equal weight. The reason these are five-year estimates isn't because people just like vaguer time frames, it's because that's the number of years of survey responses required to achieve a sample size big enough to make meaningful data. And if you compare overlapping five-year time frames, the only differences are in the non-overlapping years. And so the difference between the overlapping time frames doesn't have the (already meager) five-year sample size.
    tl;dr- Refer to the data by their full five-year range.

  • Yes, thanks and 2021 acs5 is not clear for many individuals, and I think for the label 2017-2021 acs5. Even great data charted is worthless without clear labels. As for the complexity of using prior?? I'm thinking at this point, maybe for the upcoming 2022, I'll just skip comparison to prior because no matter how I do it and label it, it'll probably confuse some people and I want first impressions to be very clear.