Zip Code Median Income Data

This is data.census.gov? I find that impossible to use as well -- I've started using the API where you change the URL to get data, it sounds hard but if you start with an example, study the variables for a couple minutes you can figure out how to craft the URL to get what you want 

Hello sir,

I want to use the census api for finding that a zipcode is within the top 10% of per capita income of the state i have found the per capita income of zipcode but how to find that it exist in top 10%.

here i am attaching the url for per capita income:

api.census.gov/.../acs5 code tabulation area:*

Thanks in advance.

Thank you for the reply sir,
the above url is giving the PCI with their state and zipcode?
Now what should i do for getting the PCI for a single state with their respected zipcodes?

Just filter the results for whatever state you're interested in. Or you might be able to designate a specific state in the API call. You'd need to review the API documentation. https://www.census.gov/data/developers/guidance/api-user-guide.Core_Concepts.html

Why not just use data.census.gov? If you're not very familiar with the API, data.census.gov would be much easier to get what you want.

ok thank you.

Does data.census.gov contain AMI data by county? I tried endlessly to find this data but not getting it. Trying to avoid sourcing the data 50 times at the state leve and instead have AMI listed by county for 2020 or most recent year

AMI data are computed and disseminated by HUD using ACS data. Here's a link to the Excel file that provides the figure for every county: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il20/Section8-FY20.xlsx 

Awesome, I think this gets me closer to the data set I need. Is HUD the best place to source the directly to refresh it annually? Want to provide our developer with the exact link to source the data

Here's the web page: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il.html 

And here's the API access: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/dataset/fmr-api.html 

Thank you so much Bryan!

Hello sir,

I found the per capita income according to zip code using the above url but i also want to fetch the place name of the zip code area using the cansus api .
Please help me out.


Thanks in advance

What do you mean? ZCTAs don't have names.

I've done that by matching on USPS data -- not impossible -- they tend to have multiple names, let me see if I can reconstruct what I did

I happened to answer this very question on the Census Slack today:

Just keep in mind, ZCTAs are only updated every 10 years, and ZIP codes are constantly changing based on changes to post office locations, mail routes, etc. Since it's now 2021, and the most recent ZCTAs are from 2010, ZCTAs are currently as out-of-date as they get in this cycle. So if your ZIP code source is current, the geographies represented by matching codes could be significantly different.

In 2016, I did an analysis matching ZCTAs with ZIP codes, and found that 70% of ZCTAs shared at least 80% of their area with their corresponding ZIP codes. Not bad, but 11% of ZCTAs shared less than half their area with their corresponding ZIP code. And since that was five years ago, the numbers are surely worse now. You can read the blog post (mostly meant for beginners) here: https://www.policymap.com/2016/03/what-are-zip-code-tabulation-areas/

Just for fun, these were some examples of ZCTAs that didn't really match their ZIP codes:

This is all true! Especially when a zip is at the margins of civilization (in the Miami area you'd have vast swaths of Everglades that would suddenly turn into subdivisions) but for my purposes a few years ago it worked well, maybe partly because I was comparing home price index values from decades ago so they tended to be suburban areas that hadn't changed much in that time -- I was looking at zip code level index, using ACS to gauge black homeownership, and the finding on inequality stood up well when I went to some of those zip codes and looked at their histories

This is all true! Especially when a zip is at the margins of civilization (in the Miami area you'd have vast swaths of Everglades that would suddenly turn into subdivisions) but for my purposes a few years ago it worked well, maybe partly because I was comparing home price index values from decades ago so they tended to be suburban areas that hadn't changed much in that time -- I was looking at zip code level index, using ACS to gauge black homeownership, and the finding on inequality stood up well when I went to some of those zip codes and looked at their histories