St. Louis Fed’s FRED Adds New County-Level Data

ST. LOUIS – FRED® (Federal Reserve Economic Data), the signature economic database of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has beefed up its U.S. county-level data. FRED recently added new data series for counties and county-equivalent areas. Check out the following categories and their respective sources:

U.S. Census Bureau

• Building permits: The annual number of private housing structures that have been authorized by building permits.
• Small business ownership rate: The annual rate the number of firms that employ fewer than 500 people, divided by the number of people in the labor force.

U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS)

• Income inequality: The average annual level of inequality, as measured by the ratio of the mean income for the highest quintile (top 20 percent) of earners divided by the mean income of the lowest quintile (bottom 20 percent) of earners, over the preceding five-years of the observation period.
• Racial dissimilarity index: The average annual percentage of the non-Hispanic white population in a county that would have to change Census tracts to equalize the racial distribution between white and non-white population groups across all tracts in the county over the preceding five-years of the observation period.
• Disconnected youth: The average annual percentage of youth between the ages of 16 and 19, who are not enrolled in school, and who are unemployed or not in the labor force, over the preceding five-years of the observation period.
• Single-parent households with children: The average annual percentage of single-parent households with their own children who are younger than 18 years of age as a percentage of total households with their children who are younger than 18 years of age, over the preceding five-years of the observation period.
• Burdened households: The average annual percentage of burdened households, or those households that spend more than 30 percent of income on rent or mortgage expenses, over the preceding five-years of the observation period.
• Mean commute time: The average annual minutes of time spent by workers who commute, calculated by dividing the aggregate travel time to work for all workers who commute by the total number of workers, 16 years of age and older, over the preceding five-years of the observation period.
• County poverty status: The average annual percentage of the population below the federal poverty line over the preceding five-years of the observation period.
• Educational attainment: The average annual percentage of residents over the age of 25 who have completed an associate's degree or higher, over the preceding five-years of the observation period.

Equifax

• Equifax Subprime Credit Population: The quarterly percentage of a population sample with a credit score below 660.

U.S. Bureau of Federal Investigations

• Offenses known to law enforcement: The combined number violent and property crime incidents as reported by county law enforcement agencies.

Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare

• Preventable hospital admissions: The annual rate of preventable hospital admissions calculated by dividing the number of discharges of ambulatory care sensitive conditions per 1,000 Medicare enrollees.

Visit the FRED Announcements page for more information on these new data series.

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