American Community Survey, 5-year
Multi-year survey estimates of household income, housing costs, and age structure with sample size sufficient for small geographies, covering every Idaho county, Idaho, and the nation.
Publisher
- Organization
- U.S. Census Bureau
- Publisher’s dataset
- American Community Survey, 5-Year Estimates
- File or API used
- https://api.census.gov/data/{endyear}/acs/acs5?get=NAME,{variables}&for=county:*&in=state:16|state:16|us:*&key=... (2020-2024 instead pulled from https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/summary_file/2024/table-based-SF/data/5YRData/, see caveats)
- Retrieval script
scripts/fetch-census-acs.py- Methodology
- https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/methodology.html
Coverage
- Geography
- Idaho counties (all 44), Idaho, and the nation
- Time coverage
- 2010-2014, 2015-2019, 2020-2024
- Update frequency
- Annual, as a rolling 5-year window
- Published
- January 29, 2026
- Retrieved
- September 8, 2026
- License
- The compiled file on this page is CC BY 4.0. The underlying records: Public domain. U.S. federal government work.
Measures
| Measure | What it measures | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Median household income | Median household income in the past 12 months, in the window's final-year inflation-adjusted dollars (B19013_001E). | usd |
| Median home value | Median value of owner-occupied housing units, as estimated by the owner (B25077_001E). | usd |
| Median gross rent | Median gross rent (contract rent plus utilities) for renter-occupied housing units paying cash rent (B25064_001E). | usd |
| Homeownership rate | Owner-occupied housing units as a percent of all occupied housing units: B25003_002E / B25003_001E * 100. | percent |
| Renters paying 30%+ of income on rent | Share of renter households spending 30 percent or more of household income on gross rent: the sum of B25070's 30.0-34.9, 35.0-39.9, 40.0-49.9 and 50.0-percent-or-more categories, divided by the table total minus the 'not computed' category, times 100. | percent |
| Housing units | Total housing units, occupied and vacant (B25001_001E). | count |
| Housing vacancy rate | Vacant housing units as a percent of all housing units: B25002_003E / B25002_001E * 100. | percent |
| Median age | Median age of the total population (B01002_001E). | years |
| Population under 18 | Population under 18 years old as a percent of total population, summed across B01001's under-5, 5-9, 10-14 and 15-17 age categories for both sexes, divided by B01001_001E, times 100. | percent |
| Population 65 and older | Population 65 years and older as a percent of total population, summed across B01001's 65-66 through 85-and-over age categories for both sexes, divided by B01001_001E, times 100. | percent |
| Poverty rate | Population below the poverty level in the past 12 months as a percent of the population for whom poverty status is determined: B17001_002E / B17001_001E * 100. | percent |
| Uninsured rate | Civilian noninstitutionalized population with no health insurance coverage as a percent of that population, summed across B27001's 9 age bands for both sexes, divided by B27001_001E, times 100. | percent |
Caveats
- All values are 5-year-window survey estimates and carry margins of error not stored here.
- Dollar figures (economy.median_household_income, housing.median_home_value, housing.median_gross_rent) are in the dollars of the window's final year and are not adjusted for inflation across windows.
- 5-year estimates are not comparable to 1-year estimates (see census-acs1) for the same geography or metric, even when the final year matches: different reference periods produce different figures.
- The 2010-2014 and 2015-2019 windows were pulled from the Census Data API (api.census.gov), which requires an API key; the 2020-2024 window was pulled from Census's keyless bulk table-based Summary File (www2.census.gov), which only exists in that convenient one-file-per-table layout from that window onward and was already on hand.
- economy.poverty_rate and economy.uninsured_rate are derived from detailed tables B17001 and B27001 rather than the Census subject tables S1701/S2701, for cross-vintage column-numbering stability (documented in the puller's docstring); this also means they are available even though this puller does not use subject tables at all.
- No suppressed or missing values were found for any of Idaho's 44 counties for any metric in any of the three windows: all 12 metrics x 46 geographies (44 counties, Idaho, and the nation) are populated in each window. Smaller counties remain more sensitive to sampling error even where a value is published; consult the source's margin of error before treating small differences between counties as real.
- All rate and share metrics (percent unit) are rounded to one decimal place by this puller; level metrics are stored exactly as published.
Downloads
How to cite
Understand Idaho, “American Community Survey, 5-Year Estimates”, compiled from U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 5-Year Estimates. Retrieved September 8, 2026. https://understandidaho.com/data/census-acs5/. CC BY 4.0.
Cite U.S. Census Bureau directly for the figures themselves.
This page was last updated .