Demographic Updates
The Claritas Demographic Estimation Program traces its history
to the industry's earliest years, and is completing its third decade
in the hands of the industry's most experienced demographers.
The demographers now with the Claritas team did the industry’s
groundbreaking work in small area estimation, and continue to make
contributions to the profession of applied demography.
 The Demographic Update is a shorthand term for the massive set of
demographic estimates and projections produced each year by Claritas.
Estimates are data prepared for current year, and projections
(sometimes called forecasts) are prepared for dates five years in
the future.
The Claritas Demographic Update is produced each year for many
geographic levels including national, state, county, place
(city/town), census tract, and block group. Data are also available
for commonly used areas such as metropolitan areas, ZIP Codes, and
media areas such as DMAs. Because they are produced for small areas,
the Updates can be easily aggregated to custom geographic areas
specified by the user.
The Update starts with the estimation and projection of "base
counts," such as total population, household population, group
quarters population, households, family households, and housing
units. Characteristics related to these base counts are then
estimated. Population characteristics include age, sex, race, and
Hispanic ethnicity; households are estimated by age of householder
and income; family households are estimated by income; and
owner-occupied housing units are estimated by value.
The updates are prepared first for large geographic areas, then for
progressively smaller areas, with adjustments ensuring consistency
from one level to the next. In order to take full advantage of
methodological refinements and new data resources, each set of
updates begins not with the previous year’s estimates, but with data
from the most recent decennial census. For this reason, the
difference between estimates for consecutive years is not an
estimate of change from one year to the next. Change is estimated
with reference to the previous census numbers.
Census & ZIP Code Boundary Maps
Claritas Data includes
Census and ZIP Code Boundary
files to use with MapInfo
and ArcView for Thematic
mapping.
Methodology
Download
the Claritas Data Catalog... |
