Hello,
I am a bit confused on the county-county migration MOE's, specifically for the geographical mobility estimates for each county. The documentation just says this:
"the files also contain additional geographical mobility estimates for each county, along with the margin of error (MOE) at the 90 percent confidence level."
And, I'm just not entirely sure what I'm looking at with the csv files for county-county flows. Is the estimate the "best guess" and the MOE the possible range? I.e., is the actual number somewhere between the Estimate - MOE and the Estimate + MOE. If so, what are best practices for using it to understand flows when so many of the MOE's are very close to the value of the estimates?
Thanks!
In the context of geographical mobility estimates for county-county migration, the "estimate" typically represents the best guess or the central point estimate of the number of people who have moved from one county to another during a specific time period. The "MOE" (Margin of Error) provides a measure of the uncertainty associated with that estimate at a certain confidence level, usually 90 percent confidence level in this case.
You are correct in your interpretation of the MOE. It represents the range within which the true value is likely to fall with a certain level of confidence. Specifically, for a 90 percent confidence level, you can think of it as the range from Estimate - MOE to Estimate + MOE being the likely range in which the true value falls.