Median income by race?

[For anyone who received an email with a previous response from me, please see this one instead. I hit "reply" prematurely before.]

Median incomes can be found in the set of tables starting with B19013. If you want mutually exclusive categories, then I'd recommend B19001H (which includes only people who identify as White and not Hispanic/Latino).

There's no corresponding table for everyone who identifies as Black/Indigenous/people of color. You could use the microdata (IPUMS-USA), but if you haven't worked with the raw data before, and/or need this data for areas with fewer than 100,000 people, and/or want to match the summary files, you can estimate this in a spreadsheet from the distribution of household incomes:

• Subtract each cell in B19001H from the corresponding cell in B19001. This will give you the distribution of household income for people who identify as BIPOC (considering all people who report Hispanic/Latino origin to be part of this category).
• Calculate the percentage of households in each income category, then calculate the cumulative percentage for each category (the share of people with an income at or below the upper limit of each category). So if 6% of households have an income under $10,000, and 9% of households have an income between $10,000 and $14,999, we know that 15% of households have an income of $14,999 or less.
• Find the income category that contains the median, then use a formula based on the upper limits and cumulative percentages of that category and the next-lowest one. (This just interpolates between those two "known" points on the income distribution, assuming a uniform distribution within categories.)

On that formula: it's easier to see this in an example than in a verbal description. I can't figure out a way to put a screenshot in this message, but it's in this presentation from a previous ACS Data Users conference. If that doesn't work, let me know and I can send it to you directly.

Good luck!

[For anyone who received an email with a previous response from me, please see this one instead. I hit "reply" prematurely before.]

Median incomes can be found in the set of tables starting with B19013. If you want mutually exclusive categories, then I'd recommend B19001H (which includes only people who identify as White and not Hispanic/Latino).

There's no corresponding table for everyone who identifies as Black/Indigenous/people of color. You could use the microdata (IPUMS-USA), but if you haven't worked with the raw data before, and/or need this data for areas with fewer than 100,000 people, and/or want to match the summary files, you can estimate this in a spreadsheet from the distribution of household incomes:

• Subtract each cell in B19001H from the corresponding cell in B19001. This will give you the distribution of household income for people who identify as BIPOC (considering all people who report Hispanic/Latino origin to be part of this category).
• Calculate the percentage of households in each income category, then calculate the cumulative percentage for each category (the share of people with an income at or below the upper limit of each category). So if 6% of households have an income under $10,000, and 9% of households have an income between $10,000 and $14,999, we know that 15% of households have an income of $14,999 or less.
• Find the income category that contains the median, then use a formula based on the upper limits and cumulative percentages of that category and the next-lowest one. (This just interpolates between those two "known" points on the income distribution, assuming a uniform distribution within categories.)

On that formula: it's easier to see this in an example than in a verbal description. I can't figure out a way to put a screenshot in this message, but it's in this presentation from a previous ACS Data Users conference. If that doesn't work, let me know and I can send it to you directly.

Good luck!