Pop-Facts

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.

Pop-Facts 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.

Pop-Facts is produced each year for many geographic levels including national, state, county, place (city/town), MCD, 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, Pop-Facts can be easily aggregated to custom geographic areas specified by the user.

Pop-Facts 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.

Pop-Facts 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. The target estimation and projection date is January 1 of the relevant year.

Census & ZIP Code Boundary Maps

More Information

• Pop-Facts Methodology

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