The Census Bureau determines that a person is living in poverty when his or her total household income compared with the size and composition of the household is below the poverty threshold. The Census Bureau uses the federal government's official definition of poverty to determine the poverty threshold. Beginning in 2000, individuals were presented with the option to select one or more races. In addition, the Census asked individuals to identify their race separately from identifying their Hispanic origin. The Census has published individual tables for the races and ethnicities provided as supplemental information to the main table that does not dissaggregate by race or ethnicity. Race categories include the following - White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Some other race, and Two or more races. We are not including specific combinations of two or more races as the counts of these combinations are small. Ethnic categories include - Hispanic or Latino and White Non-Hispanic. This data comes from the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year estimates, table B17001. The ACS collects these data from a sample of households on a rolling monthly basis. ACS aggregates samples into one-, three-, or five-year periods. CTdata.org generally carries the five-year datasets, as they are considered to be the most accurate, especially for geographic areas that are the size of a county or smaller.Poverty status determined is the denominator for the poverty rate. It is the population for which poverty status was determined so when poverty is calculated they exclude institutionalized people, people in military group quarters, people in college dormitories, and unrelated individuals under 15 years of age.Below poverty level are households as determined by the thresholds based on the criteria of looking at household size, Below poverty level are households as determined by the thresholds based on the criteria of looking at household size, number of children, and age of householder.number of children, and age of householder.

This dataset contains replication files for "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment" by Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, and Lawrence Katz. For more information, see https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/newmto/. A summary of the related publication follows. There are large differences in individuals’ economic, health, and educational outcomes across neighborhoods in the United States. Motivated by these disparities, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development designed the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment to determine whether providing low-income families assistance in moving to better neighborhoods could improve their economic and health outcomes. The MTO experiment was conducted between 1994 and 1998 in five large U.S. cities. Approximately 4,600 families living in high-poverty public housing projects were randomly assigned to one of three groups: an experimental voucher group that was offered a subsidized housing voucher that came with a requirement to move to a census tract with a poverty rate below 10%, a Section 8 voucher group that was offered a standard housing voucher with no additional contingencies, and a control group that was not offered a voucher (but retained access to public housing). Previous research on the MTO experiment has found that moving to lower-poverty areas greatly improved the mental and physical health of adults. However, prior work found no impacts of the MTO treatments on the earnings of adults and older youth, leading some to conclude that neighborhood environments are not an important component of economic success. In this study, we present a new analysis of the effect of the MTO experiment on children’s long-term outcomes. Our re-analysis is motivated by new research showing that a neighborhood’s effect on children’s outcomes may depend critically on the duration of exposure to that environment. In particular, Chetty and Hendren (2015) use quasi-experimental methods to show that every year spent in a better area during childhood increases a child’s earnings in adulthood, implying that the gains from moving to a better area are larger for children who are younger at the time of the move. In light of this new evidence on childhood exposure effects, we study the long-term impacts of MTO on children who were young when their families moved to better neighborhoods. Prior work has not been able to examine these issues because the younger children in the MTO experiment are only now old enough to be entering the adult labor market. For older children (those between ages 13-18), we find that moving to a lower-poverty neighborhood has a statistically insignificant or slightly negative effect. More generally, the gains from moving to lower-poverty areas decline steadily with the age of the child at the time of the move. We do not find any clear evidence of a “critical age” below which children must move to benefit from a better neighborhood. Rather, every extra year of childhood spent in a low-poverty environment appears to be beneficial, consistent with the findings of Chetty and Hendren (2015). The MTO treatments also had little or no impact on adults’ economic outcomes, consistent with previous results. Together, these studies show that childhood exposure plays a critical role in neighborhoods’ effects on economic outcomes. The experimental voucher increased the earnings of children who moved at young ages in all five experimental sites, for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, and for boys and girls. Perhaps most notably, we find robust evidence that the experimental voucher improved long-term outcomes for young boys, a subgroup where prior studies have found little evidence of gains. Our estimates imply that moving a child out of public housing to a low-poverty area when young (at age 8 on average) using a subsidized voucher like the MTO experimental voucher will increase the child’s total lifetime earnings by about $302,000. This is equivalent to a gain of $99,000 per child moved in present value at age 8, discounting future earnings at a 3% interest rate. The additional tax revenue generated from these earnings increases would itself offset the incremental cost of the subsidized voucher relative to providing public housing. We conclude that offering low-income families housing vouchers and assistance in moving to lowerpoverty neighborhoods has substantial benefits for the families themselves and for taxpayers. It appears important to target such housing vouchers to families with young children – perhaps even at birth – to maximize the benefits. Our results provide less support for policies that seek to improve the economic outcomes of adults through residential relocation. More broadly, our findings suggest that efforts to integrate disadvant... Visit https://dataone.org/datasets/sha256%3Aa12b8c1f14eeabc92c1d91bd0311bc4aa3ddf6d7fb69ca798ca6926e7fa292c7 for complete metadata about this dataset.

Social vulnerability is defined as the disproportionate susceptibility of some social groups to the impacts of hazards, including death, injury, loss, or disruption of livelihood. In this dataset from Climate Ready Boston, groups identified as being more vulnerable are older adults, children, people of color, people with limited English proficiency, people with low or no incomes, people with disabilities, and people with medical illnesses. Source:The analysis and definitions used in Climate Ready Boston (2016) are based on "A framework to understand the relationship between social factors that reduce resilience in cities: Application to the City of Boston." Published 2015 in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction by Atyia Martin, Northeastern University.Population Definitions:Older Adults:Older adults (those over age 65) have physical vulnerabilities in a climate event; they suffer from higher rates of medical illness than the rest of the population and can have some functional limitations in an evacuation scenario, as well as when preparing for and recovering from a disaster. Furthermore, older adults are physically more vulnerable to the impacts of extreme heat. Beyond the physical risk, older adults are more likely to be socially isolated. Without an appropriate support network, an initially small risk could be exacerbated if an older adult is not able to get help.Data source: 2008-2012 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates (ACS) data by census tract for population over 65 years of age.Attribute label: OlderAdultChildren: Families with children require additional resources in a climate event. When school is cancelled, parents need alternative childcare options, which can mean missing work. Children are especially vulnerable to extreme heat and stress following a natural disaster.Data source: 2010 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates (ACS) data by census tract for population under 5 years of age.Attribute label: TotChildPeople of Color: People of color make up a majority (53 percent) of Boston’s population. People of color are more likely to fall into multiple vulnerable groups aswell. People of color statistically have lower levels of income and higher levels of poverty than the population at large. People of color, many of whom also have limited English proficiency, may not have ready access in their primary language to information about the dangers of extreme heat or about cooling center resources. This risk to extreme heat can be compounded by the fact that people of color often live in more densely populated urban areas that are at higher risk for heat exposure due to the urban heat island effect.Data source: 2008-2012 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates (ACS) data by census tract: Black, Native American, Asian, Island, Other, Multi, Non-white Hispanics.Attribute label: POC2Limited English Proficiency: Without adequate English skills, residents can miss crucial information on how to preparefor hazards. Cultural practices for information sharing, for example, may focus on word-of-mouth communication. In a flood event, residents can also face challenges communicating with emergency response personnel. If residents are more sociallyisolated, they may be less likely to hear about upcoming events. Finally, immigrants, especially ones who are undocumented, may be reluctant to use government services out of fear of deportation or general distrust of the government or emergency personnel.Data Source: 2008-2012 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates (ACS) data by census tract, defined as speaks English only or speaks English “very well”.Attribute label: LEPLow to no Income: A lack of financial resources impacts a household’s ability to prepare for a disaster event and to support friends and neighborhoods. For example, residents without televisions, computers, or data-driven mobile phones may face challenges getting news about hazards or recovery resources. Renters may have trouble finding and paying deposits for replacement housing if their residence is impacted by flooding. Homeowners may be less able to afford insurance that will cover flood damage. Having low or no income can create difficulty evacuating in a disaster event because of a higher reliance on public transportation. If unable to evacuate, residents may be more at risk without supplies to stay in their homes for an extended period of time. Low- and no-income residents can also be more vulnerable to hot weather if running air conditioning or fans puts utility costs out of reach.Data source: 2008-2012 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates (ACS) data by census tract for low-to- no income populations. The data represents a calculated field that combines people who were 100% below the poverty level and those who were 100–149% of the poverty level.Attribute label: Low_to_NoPeople with Disabilities: People with disabilities are among the most vulnerable in an emergency; they sustain disproportionate rates of illness, injury, and death in disaster events.46 People with disabilities can find it difficult to adequately prepare for a disaster event, including moving to a safer place. They are more likely to be left behind or abandoned during evacuations. Rescue and relief resources—like emergency transportation or shelters, for example— may not be universally accessible. Research has revealed a historic pattern of discrimination against people with disabilities in times of resource scarcity, like after a major storm and flood.Data source: 2008-2012 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates (ACS) data by census tract for total civilian non-institutionalized population, including: hearing difficulty, vision difficulty, cognitive difficulty, ambulatory difficulty, self-care difficulty, and independent living difficulty. Attribute label: TotDisMedical Illness: Symptoms of existing medical illnesses are often exacerbated by hot temperatures. For example, heat can trigger asthma attacks or increase already high blood pressure due to the stress of high temperatures put on the body. Climate events can interrupt access to normal sources of healthcare and even life-sustaining medication. Special planning is required for people experiencing medical illness. For example, people dependent on dialysis will have different evacuation and care needs than other Boston residents in a climate event.Data source: Medical illness is a proxy measure which is based on EASI data accessed through Simply Map. Health data at the local level in Massachusetts is not available beyond zip codes. EASI modeled the health statistics for the U.S. population based upon age, sex, and race probabilities using U.S. Census Bureau data. The probabilities are modeled against the census and current year and five year forecasts. Medical illness is the sum of asthma in children, asthma in adults, heart disease, emphysema, bronchitis, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, and liver disease. A limitation is that these numbers may be over-counted as the result of people potentially having more than one medical illness. Therefore, the analysis may have greater numbers of people with medical illness within census tracts than actually present. Overall, the analysis was based on the relationship between social factors.Attribute label: MedIllnesOther attribute definitions:GEOID10: Geographic identifier: State Code (25), Country Code (025), 2010 Census TractAREA_SQFT: Tract area (in square feet)AREA_ACRES: Tract area (in acres)POP100_RE: Tract population countHU100_RE: Tract housing unit countName: Boston Neighborhood