Research Reports

Calculating Coefficient of Variation for the Minimum Change School District Poverty Estimates and the Assessment of the Impact of Nongeocoded Tax Returns

Jerry Maples

KEY WORDS: Small Area Estimation, Poverty, School Districts, Income tax data, Variance estimation

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we propose a method that can be used in non-census years to calculate the coefficient of variation (CV) for the estimates of the number of children in poverty for school districts. The point estimates are based on the Minimum Change methodology outlined in Maples and Bell (2007) which incorporates information about sub-county level poverty for school age children from the IRS income tax data. Additionally, we will attempt to empirically quantify the possible improvement in CV that might be made by improving the geocoding process to reduce the percentage of nongeocoded exemptions. Comparisons of CVs will be made against the Census long-form CVs from 2000 and 1990.

CITATION: Maples, Jerry. Calculating Coefficient of Variation for the Minimum Change School District Poverty Estimates and the Assessment of the Impact of Nongeocoded Tax Returns. Statistical Research Division Research Report Series (Statistcs #2008-10). U.S. Census Bureau.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Research Division

Published online: November 21, 2008
Last revised: November 4th, 2008