Still Living Without The Basics
Still Living Without The Basics
Still Living Without The Basics
Still Living
Without the Basics
in the 21st Century
Analyzing the
Availability of Wa t e r
and Sanitation Services
in the United States
Table of Contents
Foreword.............................................................................................................................................................1
Executive Summary...........................................................................................................................................3
Still Living Without the Basics in the 21st Century ......................................................................................3
Still Living Without the Basics: Analyzing the Availability of Water and Sanitation Services in the
United States.......................................................................................................................................................7
Introduction........................................................................................................................................................7
Methodological Layout of the Study...............................................................................................................8
Part I of the Analysis......................................................................................................................................8
Part II of the Analysis....................................................................................................................................9
Information Gaps ............................................................................................................................................10
Report Findings and Discussions ..................................................................................................................11
How Many People in the United States Live Without Basic Water and Sanitation Services?..............11
Who Are the People Living Without Basic Water and Sanitation Services?...........................................12
Rural – Urban Divide...................................................................................................................................13
Analysis by Race and Ethnicity...................................................................................................................16
In Which States Are Basic Water Services Most Lacking? ........................................................................26
State-Level Analysis......................................................................................................................................26
County-Level Analysis .................................................................................................................................26
Rural-Urban Analysis ...................................................................................................................................28
Ethnic Distribution ......................................................................................................................................29
Why Are Water and Sanitation Services Important? ..................................................................................34
Factors Affecting People Living Without Basic Services...........................................................................36
Socioeconomic Conditions .........................................................................................................................36
Ruralness........................................................................................................................................................38
Cost and Quality of Water and Sanitation Services.................................................................................39
Demographics...............................................................................................................................................40
Factors Influencing Trends in Access to Water and Sanitation................................................................40
Socioeconomic Immigration.......................................................................................................................40
Housing Development.................................................................................................................................41
What Has Been and Is Being Done to Address These Issues?.................................................................42
Ensuring That Water Infrastructure Is Adequately Maintained ...............................................................42
Key Program and Policy Concerns Related to These Issues.....................................................................44
State-by-State Analysis at County Level .......................................................................................................55
Explanation of Terms .....................................................................................................................................57
Glossary.......................................................................................................................................................... 199
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Foreword
Still Living Without the Basics in the 21st Century is the culmination of nearly a year of research and
analysis that documents the availability of adequate water and sanitation service in U.S. homes. It is
based in large part on data from the 2000 decennial census, supplemented by other publicly available
information. This publication is a sequel, updating an analysis published in 1995 by the Rural
Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP, Inc.) that focused on data from the 1990 decennial
census.
In comparing these documents, two points stand out clearly. The efforts of the Rural Community
Assistance Partnership – and other agencies and organizations working tirelessly in thousands of
small rural communities – have paid off significantly. And still, much remains to be done.
The 1990 census showed that 405,855 rural households lacked complete indoor plumbing. Rural
households represented more than half of all U.S. homes that lacked adequate water and sanitation
services. By the 2000 census, 226,967 rural households were without complete indoor plumbing,
representing about one-third of the national total. This is real progress.
Despite the success to date, more than 600,000 residents of rural communities still do not have the
basic water and sanitation services the rest of us take for granted. It is no surprise that they are likely
to be economically disadvantaged, ethnic minorities, and geographically isolated.
There is much more to the story, of course. This report also looks at the quality of water and
sanitation services and the health consequences of inadequate service. Just as there is much to do,
there also is much to learn about the causes and effects of inadequate basic infrastructure.
The research, analysis, and writing for this report was done by Stephen Gasteyer, Ph.D., RCAP’s
Director of Community Development, and Rahul T. Vaswani, M.A., Research Associate at RCAP.
Their work was made possible by grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office
of Ground Water and Drinking Water as well as U.S. EPA’s Office of Wastewater Management and
the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utility Service’s Water and Environmental Programs.
As a nation, we have succeeded in bringing proper water and sanitation service to almost every
home. What’s left is likely to be the most difficult part of making water and sanitation services truly
universal.
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Executive Summary
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Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders also often lacked complete facilities in relatively high
proportion to their population. For instance, more than 11 percent in Vermont and 10 percent in
North Dakota reported lacking services.
A look at the state-level information shows that Alaska has the highest percentage of households
without plumbing – 6.32 percent of all its households – and Nebraska has the lowest, with only 0.36
percent of its households. More than half (53 percent) of all households lacking proper plumbing
facilities in the United States are concentrated in just one-fifth of the states – California, New York,
Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Arizona, Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina. This is not
surprising because these states also have more than half (52 percent) of the nation’s population and
more than half (55 percent) of the people who live below the poverty level. What is surprising,
though, is that only half of these states have done better than in 1990 in reducing the numbers of
people without adequate plumbing. In the other half, the numbers of households without services
have increased.
While the rural-urban divide has lessened over the last five decades – in 1950 it was almost five to
one, with 50 percent of rural homes and 11 percent of urban homes lacking plumbing – it still
persists at two to one. And with a larger share of rural homes in poverty, rural households are more
greatly affected. Today, a poor rural home is two and a half times more likely than a poor urban
home to lack proper indoor plumbing. As the home gets more rural – that is, as the population level
decreases within the area – the chances of not having such services increase further. In five of the
states – New Mexico, Arizona, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Mississippi – half or almost half of the
homes that lack adequate indoor plumbing also are below the poverty level.
Disaggregating the picture to look at county-level information gives a clearer understanding of the
dynamics of the social and economic variables that affect basic water and sanitation services. The
counties that are persistently poor, non-metro, and rural, with a larger share of their populations
composed of minority groups, are more likely to have inadequate plumbing services than are urban
counties with a more diverse racial and ethnic mix of groups. More important, these inadequate
systems pose significant health risks for vulnerable populations. Smaller community water systems
that have limited access to the resources they need to enhance these basic services are likely also to
be in violation of health and safety standards set by national environmental authorities.
Studies by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found more outbreaks of
waterborne diseases in the United States in the 1999–2000 period than in the previous seven years.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports also show that 8.2 percent of the 48,271 community
water systems in the United States that serve populations of less than 10,000 were in violation of
health and safety standards for drinking water quality in 2003.
Couple these statistics with an aging infrastructure that needs to be replaced or improved, and the
recent reductions in spending for programs to enhance water and sanitation services, and we see an
imposing and complex situation that will require careful attention and multifaceted solutions in the
coming years. The social and economic impacts of this situation are likely to be great, as are the
ecological effects of diminishing water supplies in vulnerable areas.
These are only some aspects of basic water and sanitation services in the United States that public
policy should be concerned about. Other important aspects involve the efficacy and efficiency of
our collection and presentation of information about these services. How we define questions about
water and sanitation services in national surveys, and how we tabulate the responses for subsequent
analysis and understanding of national realities, are crucial if the resulting reports are to be
substantive and meaningful. How we define the categories of “rural,” “urban,” and “poverty”
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becomes even more critical when the largest sources of funds – both federal and private – for
improving the socioeconomic conditions of people who live in poverty in both urban and rural areas
rely on these definitions as they disperse funds and institute programs.
There is an intrinsic link between the quality of basic services such as water and sanitation and the
economic opportunities that follow their improvement, especially in communities that are in close
proximity to developing urban centers. While we have seen a slight shift in the population from rural
to urban in the past decade, the conditions of many rural Americans have not improved, and the
quality of their basic services is an important reason.
While the United States has made great improvements in the quality of life for many urban and rural
Americans, there is more to be achieved – even in something as simple and essential as bringing
safe, clean water and basic water and sanitation services to the entirety of the U.S. populace. The gap
has been reduced to less than 1 percent of the entire population in the past century. Now our efforts
must focus on closing the gap. This task requires developing a more complex and detailed
understanding of the social, economic, and ecological reasons why communities lack these services,
and constructing solutions that are not only acceptable and feasible, but also sustainable.
Still Living Without the Basics is intended to inform the public’s understanding of access to water and
sanitation services in the United States and to contribute to the debate on how to structure policy
decisions for improving these services, especially for those groups that have been excluded or
overlooked in the development process. We hope to build on this research in the near future,
further investigating the links between people’s access to services and the various social, economic,
and ecological outcomes that affect those people.
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1 See, for example, the water and sanitation statistics available for the United States on the WHO and UNICEF websites at
http://www.who.int/docstore/water_sanitation_health/Globassessment/Global11-2.htm or
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/monitoring/en/Glassessment11.pdf – page 3, and at
http://www.childinfo.org/eddb/water/Euroam/usa_water1.pdf.
2 “Americans” in this report refers only to U.S. citizens, U.S. residents, or U.S. nationals, any of whom reside in the 50 states and the
District of Columbia, and, where specified, in Puerto Rico and the Island Areas (the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and
the Northern Mariana Islands).
3 These statistics include information from only the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. They are tabulated from the
services within the housing unit: (a) hot and cold piped water, (b) bathtub or shower, (c) flush toilet. This definition has been more or
less consistent since 1970. We take this definition to be equivalent, for purposes of this report, to the more general understanding of
what constitutes basic water and sanitation facilities. See also the section on information gaps in this report for a better understanding
of the limitations of information on plumbing and sanitation facilities.
5 For more information, see USEPA, The Clean Water and Drinking Water Gap Analysis, Office of Water (4606M) EPA-816-R-02-020,
2002, or www.epa.gov/safewater. Also see West Central Initiative, Infrastructure for West Central Minnesota Communities, West Central
Initiative, Fergus Falls, Minnesota, 2002, or http://www.wcif.org/publications/pdf/infra_2003/infrastructurestudy2003.pdf; accessed
May 2, 2004.
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the number of households and people lacking these services? What regions, states, and counties are
home to these people? Do these people tend to live more in rural or urban areas? What are their
ethnicities? What is their socioeconomic status? The report also tries to address some key policy
questions that arise from this analysis: How have the numbers of people living without services
changed over time – particularly in the past decade? What has contributed to this change? What is
the relationship of water and sanitation services to other basic services? What do policy makers need
to understand more clearly about this information to make further improvements in the availability
of water and sanitation services? What efforts need to be taken in this direction?
6 The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Island Areas are each treated as the statistical equivalent of a state for U.S. Census
purposes. However, figures quoted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the United States as a whole include numbers for the District of
Columbia but not for the other equivalent states, and this report treats those figures the same way unless otherwise stated in the text.
7 While tabulation of data below the county level was not practical for this endeavor, we fully recognize the limitations of county data,
specifically for recognizing rural/urban differential. Urban counties in the West often contain rural places.
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state and the county or CDP levels. This gave a clearer picture of how the numbers were
geographically placed.
In the fourth stage, we determined the correlation between the lack of adequate water and sanitation
facilities and the level of poverty, at both the state and county or CDP levels. We also did these
correlations with similar information available for the race and ethnic categories above, and for
households in urban and rural areas.
Using ArcView Geographic Information System (GIS) applications, we mapped our findings for the
states, counties, and CDP areas, showing the percentages and absolute numbers of households and
people lacking adequate water and sanitation services.
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Information Gaps
In the course of our research, we encountered some important information gaps that readers of this
report should be aware of as they try to understand the analysis.
§ Not all people answering the U.S. Census Long Form interpreted the question about plumbing
services in the same way.8 For instance, the 2000 Census revealed that more than 1,100
households, or more than 3,200 people, in Fairfax County, Virginia (a relatively affluent suburb
of Washington, D.C.), lacked complete plumbing services. This finding raises the possibility that
some responses were not what the Census question intended to elicit. Some respondents, for
instance, may have noted that they lacked complete plumbing services when those services were
in fact available to them but had been turned off for lack of payment – presumably a temporary
condition, not a permanent one. While we view this issue as critically related to our concerns, it
is beyond the scope of this report. It is worth noting here, though, that other organizations have
increasingly focused on how the inability to pay affects people’s access to water services,
whether temporarily (as when water is cut off for nonpayment) or permanently.9
§ It is possible that many people who probably lack access to basic services were not included
in the Census. Among these people may be the homeless in the United States, as well as
immigrants or migrant laborers who might have worried about responding to the Census data
collectors out of fear that the information would be turned over to law enforcement or
immigration authorities. While the Census Bureau maintains confidentiality of the data it
collects, the fact that the bureau is part of the U.S. government can make it suspect in the eyes
of many people in such categories.
§ Several key questions about plumbing and sanitation facilities were eliminated from the U.S.
Census questionnaires between 1990 and 2000. These included data about the source of water,
the type of water and wastewater facilities, and water system ownership. In the U.S. 2000
Census, they exist only in the questionnaires distributed in the Island Areas. If they had been
included in all of the questionnaires, these questions would have allowed for a more detailed
analysis of not only the numbers of people lacking plumbing and sanitation services but also the
population living with inadequate water services.10
§ Because of confidentiality considerations in small counties and inconsistencies between the data
available from the U.S. Census Bureau and data from the State Drinking Water Information
System, wherever possible we concentrated our correlations on the counties whose information
appeared in both databases. The same is true for correlations between U.S. Census information
and the data taken from the query results of Advanced Factfinder. For example, the correlation
between the lack of plumbing facilities and the monthly cost of water and sewer facilities was
possible for only 2,336 of the total 3,219 U.S. counties.11
§ The definition of "urban" and "rural" changed between the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census surveys.
Thus, the information for these categories is not directly comparable between the two surveys.12
Nonetheless, we have shown the comparative data from the two years in our ranking tables to
give readers a general idea of the magnitude of changes in "urban" and "rural" numbers between
the two censuses.
8 See the glossary at the end of this report for a description of the Long Form.
9 See the work of Public Citizen and the Welfare Rights Association on water cutoffs in Detroit, Michigan
(www.citizen.org/facts/detroit), and the report of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council on water system affordability
(www.epa.gov/safewater/ndwac/affordability).
10 The distinction here is among drinking water, water for other household purposes, and sanitation/sewer facilities.
11 The total number of counties (municipios, in the case of Puerto Rico) for the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto
Rico is 3,219.
12 For a more detailed description of “urban” and “rural,” see the glossary at the end of this report.
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How Many People in the United States Live Without Basic Water and
Sanitation Services?
The United States has made great progress over the past 50 years in providing its residents with
access to improved water and sewer facilities. In 1950, 27 percent of all households in the country
lacked access to complete plumbing facilities. The rural-urban divide then was more substantial –
close to a five-to-one ratio. More than 50 percent of rural households and 11 percent of urban
households lacked these services in 1950. Significant rural infrastructure investments by the federal
and local governments through the 1950s and 1960s led to a dramatic decrease in the households
without proper plumbing facilities. By 1970, only 5.9 percent of all U.S. households lacked piped
water, although the ratio of rural to urban still remained close to five to one (14.5 percent of rural
and 3.1 percent of urban households lacked proper plumbing facilities in 1970).
Table 1: Percentage of Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities, 1950–200013
% of occupied housing units lacking 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
plumbing (U.S.)
Rural 56 31.5 14.5 4.5 1.9 1.0
14
Rural – farm 55 NA NA 3.9 NA 1.2
Urban 11 8.2 3.1 2.2 0.5 0.5
Total 27 14.7 5.9 2.7 0.78 0.64
13 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Housing 1950, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1952; Census of Housing
1960 (1962); Census of Housing 1970 (1972); Census of Housing 1980 (1982); Census of Housing 1990 (1992); Census of Housing
2000 (2002). Also see Dennis Warner and Jaris S. Dajani, Water and Sewer Development in Rural America: A Study of Community Impacts,
Lexington Books, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1975.
14 The “Rural”category includes all non-farm and farm households. The “Rural – farm” category includes all households located in a
rural farm area and concerned with growing crops or raising livestock.
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By 1990, the United States had installed basic plumbing infrastructure for more than 99 percent of
its citizens. Most of the people who lacked plumbing services were elderly, poor, and living in rural
areas.15 Rural households were still four times as likely as urban households to lack proper plumbing.
By the 2000 Census, only 0.64 percent of occupied households lacked complete plumbing facilities
(Table 2). Indeed, the percentage was low enough in 2000 that UNICEF stated in its global reports
on access to water and sanitation services that the United States had 100 percent water and
sanitation coverage. While the 0.64 percent may appear to be statistically insignificant, it represents
more than 1.7 million people across the country, most of whom are the hidden poor – people who
live in rural, and often underserved or marginalized, areas that lack the services that most Americans
take for granted. The rural-urban divide is still at two to one – a rural household is twice as likely as
an urban one to have inadequate plumbing facilities in the United States (Table 2).16 U.S. Census
2000 figures suggest that more than 1.1 million urban citizens (equal to 0.5 percent of the total
urban population) and more than 600,000 rural citizens (equal to 1.04 percent of the total rural
population) still lack proper plumbing facilities.
Table 2. Total and Percentage of Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities,
1990–2000
Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
Census
Total – Percentage – Total – Percentage –
Year Total Percentage
Rural Rural Urban Urban
2000 670,986 0.64 226,967 1.03 444,019 0.53
1990 721,693 0.78 405,855 1.85 315,838 0.45
Who Are the People Living Without Basic Water and Sanitation Services?
The people who lack these basic services live in some of the most productive farmland in the United
States, along the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico borders, on Indian reservations, and in the states of
the South and the Southeast. They are people working and living in rural and urban areas with
dilapidated or nonexistent infrastructure. The Census 2000 data show that 0.64 percent of all
occupied households in the country lack adequate plumbing (see Maps 1 and 2). This translates to
670,986 households in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, or more than 1.7 million people.
When the numbers for Puerto Rico are included, the total households lacking plumbing increase to
736,626, and the number of people lacking these services increases to more than 1.95 million.17 In
addition, 11,033 households and an estimated population of 47,800 in the Island Areas lack com-
plete plumbing facilities; this calculation brings the total figure close to 2 million U.S. residents.18
15 See Still Living Without the Basics: A Report on the Lack of Complete Plumbing That Still Exists in Rural America, Rural Community
it goes about defining urban areas, accounting for core areas, urbanized areas, and urban clusters differentiated by population density,
proximity to metropolitan centers, and so on. What is left is given the status of “rural.” The 1990 Census found 62 million people
living in rural parts of the country. The number dropped by about 5 percent in the 2000 Census, although the total U.S. population
increased by about 13 percent. It is likely that at least some of this decrease results from the change in the definition of what
constitutes “rural” between the 1990 and 2000 Censuses, rather than from socioeconomic changes in that decade.
17 This figure of more than 1.95 million is obtained from the Advanced Query Data Finder of the Census Bureau and corroborates to
the population estimates obtained from the Summary File 3 of the U.S. Census 2000 survey.
18 The U.S. Census information does not include the numbers for Puerto Rico or the Island Areas in its tabulations of the total
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19 The estimated population is calculated by multiplying the number of households lacking plumbing facilities by the average
household size for that category (as given in Summary File 3 of the U.S. Census 2000 survey).
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Table 3 shows that rural areas generally have a higher percentage of the population lacking
plumbing. Within rural households, the proportion of those lacking plumbing is highest in
communities of fewer than 1,000 residents and among farm households. For urbanized areas or
urban clusters, the trend is different. Within urban areas, the most densely populated areas (those of
5 million or more) have the highest percentage lacking services – 0.80 percent. The percentage drops
steadily as the population size of the urban area decreases, reaching 0.41 percent of households
lacking proper plumbing in urban areas of only 50,000 to 99,999 people. In the smaller, urban
cluster category, the percentage rises as the population decreases – from 0.43 percent in larger
clusters of 25,000 to 49,999 people, to 0.54 percent in the smallest urban clusters of 2,500 to 4,999
people.
Rural areas have traditionally been the most difficult to reach with water services, because they lack
the economies of scale to support such services without subsidization or they lack the technical
assistance and financing. A total of 226,967 rural households lack adequate plumbing, which
includes 13,172 rural farm households.20 Despite the rise in American economic and living standards
with the boom in agricultural capacity, it is clear that rural-farm households remain some of the
most deprived in the nation in terms of basic services. The relatively high percentage of those
lacking services in the highly urbanized areas is presumably the result of two factors: low-income
populations living in substandard housing and people reporting water cutoffs as lacking plumbing
facilities. In either case, more research may be needed to identify the reasons for this statistic.
20Of the 670,986 households lacking complete plumbing facilities in the United States, 444,019 are urban households and 226,967 are
rural households. See Tables 2 and 3 in the text.
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many villages, residents must haul water to their homes. Due to the high need for housing,
many homes are constructed without adequate sanitation facilities being available to connect
homes or provide safe running water or proper sewage disposal. Communities are often
faced with having to make difficult decisions between adequate housing and adequate
sanitation..21
Table 4. Total and Percentage of Rural and Urban Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete
Plumbing Facilities, by Race or Ethnic Category, 2000
Race/ Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
Ethnic Total % Rural – % Rural Total %
Total %
Category Rural Rural Farm – Farm Urban Urban
White 389,415 0.47 158,653 0.79 11,449 1.09 230,762 0.36
Black 131,382 1.10 30,724 2.66 1,109 3.64 100,658 0.93
AIAN 33,781 4.41 27,256 9.62 253 4.36 6,525 1.35
Asian 27,780 0.89 644 0.82 53 1.81 27,136 0.89
NHOPI 1,383 1.40 338 3.88 4 1.61 1,045 1.16
SOR 62,687 1.63 5,090 2.18 213 2.87 57,597 1.60
Hispanic 134,723 1.47 12,256 2.16 451 2.55 122,467 1.42
The American Indians living without complete plumbing services are most numerous in the
reservations and pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona. An investigation of the county-level
information indicates that this ethnic group is most affected in the Four Corners area of New
Mexico and Arizona – in other words, on the large Hopi, Navajo, and Apache Reservations. In
Arizona, for instance, 35 percent of American Indians in Apache County and 27 percent in Navajo
County lack adequate plumbing. Significant numbers of American Indians do not have basic services
in areas such as the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota, which covers three counties – Bennett,
Jackson, and Shannon – where 2.49, 2.65, and 12.96 percent of households, respectively, report not
having complete plumbing facilities.
The Some Other Race (SOR) category is a catch-all category chosen by those who feel that their
race is not represented in the other six race categories. Based on an evaluation done by the U.S.
Census Bureau, more than 95 percent of those who filled in this category are of Mexican,
Panamanian, Caribbean, Central American, and/or South American origin.22
21 Rural Alaska Sanitation Coalition, Mission and Goals, Alaska Native Health Board, http://www.anhb.org/sub/rasc/, accessed May 2,
2004.
22 Census Bureau, “Results of 2003 National Census Test of Race and Hispanic Questions of 2003,” Suitland, Maryland, U.S. Census
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Hispanics (including Puerto Ricans) are the next largest group, at 1.47 percent (or 134,723
households) (Maps 5 and 6). More than 64,000 of these households are located in Puerto Rico.
Another 36,505 are in California, and 28,157 are in Texas. The largest numbers of people living
without services are in the urban, coastal, southern California counties of Los Angeles and San
Diego. The counties with the highest proportions of people living without services, though, are in
California’s Central Valley, a lucrative agricultural area with many farm workers from Central and
South America. These workers often struggle for a meager living, and large numbers of them remain
persistently poor and without access to basic services. The Texas population is from the colonias
along the Mexican border, where the lack of water and sanitation stems from a combination of land
tenure problems, poverty, and unresolved immigration status. The USEPA has described the
situation as follows:
There are more than 1,300 “colonias” in Texas and New Mexico along the border with an
estimated population of more than 300,000. A few colonias may exist in Arizona and some
possibly in California. However, most colonias are concentrated in the Las Cruces, New
Mexico, El Paso, Texas, and the lower Rio Grande Valley area, and west surrounding
Brownsville, Texas. Colonias developed in the border area (especially in Texas) as land
developers sold small plots of land in unincorporated subdivisions to low-income families.
These land purchases are generally financed with a low down payment and low monthly
payments. A deed of ownership is rarely transferred. At the time this activity took place,
State law only required road access and drainage. Providing solutions to public health
problems in the colonias is a unique situation in that they are not political subdivisions.
Financial programs are normally designed to deal with an identified political entity. The
typical colonia does not have any basic community infrastructure such as safe drinking water,
sewage disposal, or garbage collection and disposal.23
In absolute numbers of people lacking complete plumbing facilities in the country as a whole, the
White race category has the highest numbers, with more than 950,000 people, followed by Hispanics
at more than 475,000 people and Black or African Americans at more than 350,000 people. On
analyzing these numbers more closely at the county level, we find that for the race/ethnic categories
of White, Black or African Americans, Asian, and Hispanic, more than 96 percent of all households
lacking plumbing in the top 10 counties for each race category in the nation are urban households.
This is starkly different for the race category of AIAN. More than 96 percent of all AIANs lacking
plumbing facilities in the top 10 counties are rural. For the NHOPI category, two-thirds of the
homes in the top 10 counties are urban, and the rest are rural.24
23 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Mexico Border: Colonias Fact Sheet, USEPA, Washington, D.C., 2003,
http://www.epa.gov/owm/mab/mexican/clnfcts.pdf, accessed May 2, 2004.
24 It is important to note that the numbers for households lacking complete plumbing facilities in the top 10 counties in each
race/ethnicity category represent a substantial percentage of the total households lacking services for each of these race/ethnicity
categories. For example, the top 10 counties for AIAN, NHOPI and Asian race categories have 60 percent, 50 percent, and 45
percent, respectively, of the total households lacking plumbing in these categories all over the nation.
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Table 5. Top Five States With Highest Percentage of Households Lacking Complete Plumbing
Facilities, for Six Race and Ethnic Categories, 200025
Race/
Ethnic 1 2 3 4 5
Category State % State % State % State % State %
White AK 4.28 HI 1.10 WV 1.00 KY 0.94 ME 0.84
Black MT 3.99 MS 1.73 RI 1.64 VA 1.53 MA 1.50
AIAN AK 22.98 AZ 17.02 NM 14.18 UT 9.89 DC 6.08
Asian ND 2.19 SD 2.01 MN 1.96 RI 1.75 NH 1.64
NHOPI VT 11.11 ND 10.81 CT 9.12 ME 6.82 LA 4.93
SOR MA 3.61 AK 3.46 ME 3.09 DC 3.04 CT 2.61
Hispanic MA 3.39 AK 2.45 NY 2.18 CT 2.17 RI 1.92
The percentages for each of the race/ethnic groups lacking services vary widely geographically. A
critical commonality for all minority race/ethnicity groups except AIAN is that the states where they
have the highest percentage without water services is where they have a smaller population (Table 5).
The highest percentage of Hispanic households with inadequate plumbing is located in the
urbanized northeastern states and Alaska, where the population of Hispanics is relatively low. The
majority of AIAN households lacking plumbing are located in Alaska, as discussed above, and in the
predominantly Indian and rural, underserved counties of the west in Arizona, New Mexico, and
Utah. The highest percentage of Blacks without services is in Montana, which has a very low Black
population. More than 1.5 percent of Blacks in Rhode Island, which also has a small Black
population, reported lacking water services. The percentages of Blacks without services were also
high in the persistently poor, predominantly African American counties of Mississippi and Virginia.
The case of Bayview, Virginia, in Northampton County, is illustrative.
On a sun-kissed afternoon, Victoria Cummings fetches her 5-year-old daughter, Kadijah,
from the Head Start bus stop up on the asphalt road….Once home, Kadijah exerts her tiny
biceps by pumping a dishpan full of off-color rust-flavored water from the outdoor hand
pump that her mother will use for her "bath." Cummings plans a trip to the store to buy
bottled water for drinking and cooking with her food stamps. Her 12-year-old, Latoya, gets
home about 3:30 p.m., and Cummings leaves shortly after that for her night-shift job cutting
fat off plucked chickens.…The small settlement of Bayview sits on a peninsula across the
Chesapeake Bay from the rest of Virginia. One in a string of Eastern Shore communities
settled by freed slaves, it slowly has sunk into abject poverty in a state where much of the
economy hums with the promise of the next century. Bayview’s 114 residents are among the
most impoverished in what, by some measures, is Virginia’s poorest county….Cummings’s
dream is simple: "Water – running water – inside the house," she says.26
It is notable that through community initiative and collaboration with multiple government and
nongovernment organizations, Bayview is installing new housing and water facilities. Over time,
collective action has improved the situation.27
When we look at the states where minority groups are concentrated in large numbers, though, we
find that they constitute a predominantly large share of the people in the state who lack complete
plumbing facilities. For example, in Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, and
25 Puerto Rico has some of the highest rates of households lacking complete plumbing facilities, for all race and ethnic categories
(White 4.88%; Black 6.76%; AIAN 9.29%; Asian 5.84%; NHOPI 16.24%; Hispanic 5.22%), but it is not listed in the table, in keeping
with the convention used in this report, as explained earlier.
26 Sylvia Moreno, “In the Spotlight, A Community's Poverty,” Washington Post, May 10, 1998, page A1.
27Anne Raver, “Town of Worn Bootstraps Lifts Itself Up,” New York Times, August 21, 2003, Section F, page 1.
23
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Alabama, where Blacks constitute more than 25 percent of each state’s total population, more than
half of all people who lack plumbing in each of these states are Blacks (Table 6). This is similar for
AIAN and Hispanic race/ethnicity categories (Tables 7 and 8). The AIAN populations in Alaska,
New Mexico, and Arizona comprise from about 5 percent (in Arizona) to just over 15 percent (in
Alaska) of the state population, but well over half of all people lacking plumbing in each of these
states are from the AIAN race group.
Table 6. Percentage of Black or African American Population Lacking Complete Plumbing
Facilities, Top 10 Ranked States, 2000 28
Black or African American Race Only
Overall Population Population Lacking
(all counted races) Population Complete Plumbing
Facilities
Percentage
Difference
State of Total
Percentage of Between
Total State
Total State (1) and (2)
Total Lacking Total Total Population
Population
Plumbing Lacking
(1)
Plumbing
(2)
DC 536,373 5,508 326,611 60.89 3,603 65.41 –4.52
MS 2,749,237 23,800 990,315 36.02 16,746 70.36 –34.34
LA 4,332,884 27,289 1,378,421 31.81 16,979 62.22 –30.41
SC 3,876,875 22,092 1,130,688 29.16 13,154 59.54 –30.38
GA 7,952,484 45,094 2,244,187 28.22 23,455 52.01 –23.79
MD 5,162,381 23,421 1,416,133 27.43 10,730 45.81 –18.38
AL 4,332,570 24,962 1,104,937 25.50 13,416 53.75 –28.24
NC 7,795,305 45,335 1,653,612 21.21 20,724 45.71 –24.50
VA 6,846,703 45,332 1,306,377 19.08 18,205 40.16 –21.08
DE 758,963 2,530 140,774 18.55 1,069 42.25 –23.70
28 Source: Advanced Query Data Finder of the U.S. Census Bureau, http://advancedquery.census.gov, accessed June 4, 2004.
24
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Table 7. Percentage of AIAN Population Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities, Top 10 Ranked
States, 2000 29
AIAN Race Only
Overall Population Population Lacking
(all counted races) Population Complete Plumbing
Facilities
Percentage
Difference
State Percentage of Total
Between (1)
Total of Total State
and (2)
Total Lacking Total State Total Population
Plumbing Population Lacking
(1) Plumbing
(2)
AK 607,641 38,561 93,355 15.36 22,842 59.24 –43.87
NM 1,782,718 33,841 168,670 9.46 21,239 62.76 –53.30
SD 726,335 4,288 58,550 8.06 1,904 44.40 –36.34
OK 3,338,046 16,890 259,950 7.79 2,108 12.48 –4.69
MT 877,381 5,359 53,031 6.04 528 9.85 –3.81
AZ 5,020,851 64,238 246,667 4.91 37,218 57.94 –53.02
ND 618,494 2,024 30,253 4.89 235 11.61 –6.72
WY 479,676 2,085 11,021 2.30 223 10.70 –8.40
WA 5,757,636 28,272 88,174 1.53 882 3.12 –1.59
ID 1,262,397 6,442 16,897 1.34 302 4.69 –3.35
Table 8. Percentage of Hispanic Population Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities, Top 10 Ranked
States, 2000 30
Hispanic Ethnicity Only
Overall Population Population Lacking
(all counted races) Population Complete Plumbing
Facilities
Percentage
Difference
State Percentage of Total
Between
Total of Total State
(1) and (2)
Total Lacking Total State Total Population
Plumbing Population) Lacking
(1) Plumbing
(2)
NM 1,782,718 33,841 752,793 42.23 7,985 23.60 18.63
CA 33,052,189 273,629 10,782,193 32.62 156,731 57.28 –24.66
TX 20,290,302 167,633 6,547,417 32.27 106,761 63.69 –31.42
AZ 5,020,851 64,238 1,270,930 25.31 14,736 22.94 2.37
NV 1,964,572 9,498 389,461 19.82 3,842 40.45 –20.63
CO 4,198,094 17,574 718,590 17.12 6,076 34.57 –17.46
FL 15,593,328 80,332 2,630,311 16.87 29,389 36.58 –19.72
NY 18,395,693 155,482 2,792,797 15.18 59,162 38.05 –22.87
NJ 8,219,436 45,090 1,096,410 13.34 17,629 39.10 –25.76
IL 12,096,973 68,220 1,511,718 12.50 23,697 34.74 –22.24
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
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State-Level Analysis
Fourteen states, including New York, California, Texas, and Virginia, have figures above the national
average of 0.64 percent of total occupied households lacking adequate plumbing. Alaska has the
highest: 6.32 percent, or 14,003 households, lacking complete plumbing facilities. Nebraska has the
lowest: 0.36 percent, or 2,408 households. Calculations for numbers of people show that California
has the largest number, with more than 240,000 people (or 85,460 occupied households) lacking
complete plumbing. Wyoming has the least, with about 2,500 people (or 1,011 occupied
households). The top 10 states with the highest numbers for households with inadequate plumbing
(Table 9) hold more than half of such households in the United States. Within these states, the
AIAN population has the highest level of inadequate plumbing – an average of 3.21 percent of
AIAN households. Of these 10 states, 5 have had an average 25 percent increase in households
lacking plumbing facilities, and the other 5 have had an average 24 percent decrease. These 10 states
had an average overall increase of 16 percent in the number of total households lacking complete
plumbing services from 1990 to 2000. There are myriad reasons why the percentages decreased in
some states and increased in others. These include different levels of investment in water and
sanitation infrastructure and access to safe drinking water and sanitation, in-migration of low-wage
laborers, and existing employment and infrastructure base.
Table 9. Total and Percentage of Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities,
in Top 10 States Ranked for 2000
Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Percentage
Change
Percentage
U.S./State Total Percentage Total Percentage From 1990 to
Change from
(2000) (2000) (1990) (1990) 2000 in Total
1990 to 2000
Households
United States 670,986 0.64 721,693 0.78 –7.03 14.72
California 85,460 0.74 57,974 0.56 47.41 10.8
New York 58,418 0.83 50,428 0.76 15.84 6.29
Texas 54,853 0.74 56,844 0.94 –3.5 21.78
Florida 30,134 0.48 22,061 0.43 36.59 23.43
Pennsylvania 24,450 0.51 26,355 0.59 –7.23 6.25
Illinois 23,959 0.52 21,572 0.51 11.07 9.27
Arizona 21,088 1.11 18,352 1.34 14.91 38.9
Virginia 19,550 0.72 35,788 1.56 –45.37 17.77
Ohio 19,407 0.44 24,394 0.60 –20.44 8.76
North Carolina 19,295 0.62 33,192 1.32 –41.87 24.43
County-Level Analysis
As we took a closer look at the counties within the states (Map 7), we found several areas lacking in
plumbing services that were not possible to identify at the state level. In terms of percentage of
households lacking plumbing, the highest numbers showed up in the colonias along the Texas and
New Mexico borders with Mexico; in several counties in West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland,
Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama; along the Washington border with
Canada; in South Dakota and the predominantly Indian counties in Oklahoma; and around the Four
Corners region in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. Almost all of Alaskan boroughs and
census areas and the great majority of the municipios in Puerto Rico have higher percentages of
households lacking plumbing than show up in any other regions. Interestingly, 16 of the 20 counties
26
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27
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in the United States (including Puerto Rico here) with the highest percentages of households lacking
plumbing facilities – ranging from 10.66 percent in Alta Vega municipio in Puerto Rico to 51.87
percent in Wade Hampton census area in Alaska – are in Alaska and Puerto Rico. Of the remaining
four, three are in the Four Corners region, and one is in South Dakota.
If we look at the population figures, we see that Apache and Navajo counties in northeastern
Arizona, the colonias in southern Texas, and several highly urban counties in California, Texas, New
York, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Florida show some of the largest populations with
inadequate plumbing. Together, the top 20 counties with the highest figures for population lacking
complete plumbing hold more than a quarter of the total estimated U.S. population lacking proper
plumbing services.
Rural-Urban Analysis
The rural-urban analysis for the states shows that the states with the highest percentage of rural and
rural-farm homes lacking proper plumbing are fairly similar across both areas (Table 10), with the
exception of Pennsylvania, which has a higher percentage of its farm households with plumbing.
Alaska stands out as the state with the highest percentages across all the three areas – urban, rural,
and rural-farm. Most of the affected urban areas are in densely populated cities on the coasts or
rivers in the South, Southwest, Northeast, and Hawaii.
Table 10. Percentage of Rural, Rural-Farm, and Urban Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete
Plumbing Facilities, in Top 10 States, Ranked for 2000
Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
Rank Rural Rural-Farm Urban
State % State % State %
1 Alaska 16.89 Alaska 11.63 Alaska 1.04
2 Arizona 6.20 Hawaii 7.32 New York 0.86
3 New Mexico 5.73 Arizona 3.64 District of Columbia 0.85
4 Hawaii 4.55 Pennsylvania 2.75 California 0.73
5 Kentucky 1.71 West Virginia 2.51 Texas 0.65
6 Virginia 1.66 New Mexico 2.38 Massachusetts 0.64
7 West Virginia 1.55 Maine 2.38 Louisiana 0.60
8 Utah 1.43 Virginia 2.09 Hawaii 0.60
9 Maine 1.26 Wisconsin 1.89 Mississippi 0.56
10 Montana 1.18 Kentucky 1.85 Rhode Island 0.56
Rural households in the United States total 226,967, and more than 600,000 people live in homes
that lack adequate plumbing. Another 6,868 rural households, or more than 23,000 people, in Puerto
Rico and the Island Areas live in similar or worse conditions. The 10 states with the highest
populations lacking plumbing in rural-farm and urban areas are shown in Table 11.
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Table 11. Estimated Rural, Rural-Farm, and Urban Population Lacking Complete Plumbing
Facilities, in Top 10 States, Ranked for 2000
Estimated Population Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
Rank Rural Rural-Farm Urban
State Pop. State Pop. State Pop.
1 Texas 41,411 Wisconsin 2,588 California 226,584
2 Arizona 36,529 Ohio 2,442 New York 137,966
3 Alaska 35,392 Kentucky 2,383 Texas 109,131
4 Virginia 30,926 Pennsylvania 2,349 Florida 66,143
5 Kentucky 30,230 Missouri 2,031 Illinois 56,243
6 North Carolina 27,044 Texas 1,840 New Jersey 42,832
7 New Mexico 25,648 Indiana 1,805 Pennsylvania 39,701
8 Pennsylvania 21,416 Minnesota 1,362 Massachusetts 36,048
9 Tennessee 21,213 Virginia 1,331 Michigan 30,973
10 Ohio 20,079 Iowa 1,315 Ohio 29,166
In the top 10 rural states shown in Table 11, plumbing is lacking in 1.5 percent of the rural
households. This number is almost 1.5 times the national rural average and 3 times the national
urban average. In the case of rural-farm populations in the top 10 states shown in Table 11, a rural-
farm resident is almost three times as likely as an average urban American to lack complete
plumbing facilities.
In general, rural residents are 2 times and rural-farm residents are 2.5 times more likely to lack
plumbing than their urban counterparts.
Ethnic Distribution
In terms of ethnic distribution, Whites have higher percentages of households without adequate
plumbing in the socioeconomically marginalized areas in West Virginia, Kentucky, Montana, Alaska,
and Maine (Maps 8 and 9), and Blacks have higher percentages in Virginia, New York, Louisiana,
Alabama, North and South Carolina, Oregon and Montana (Maps 10 and 11). Hispanic households
that are affected have higher percentages in most of the New England states and in the states with
larger Latino or Spanish-speaking populations – California, Texas, and New Mexico. The most
affected AIAN communities are concentrated in the Four Corners region and in Alaska.
29
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30
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31
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32
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33
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Figure 1: Relationship Between Access to Safe Drinking Water and Child Mortality
31 Cited in Border Environment Research Reports (July 1996), Improving the Quality of Drinking Water in Colonias in the Ciudad Juárez–El
Paso Area, Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias, San Diego State University, San Diego, California,
http://www.scerp.org/scerp/docs/berr3.html.
32 UNICEF, State of the World’s Children 2000, United Nations, UNICEF, New York, New York, http://www.unicef.org, accessed May
2, 2004.
34
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Typhoid, cholera, hepatitis A, and various other gastrointestinal maladies associated with waterborne
disease were common in U.S. cities and rural areas through the early 1900s. As municipalities seized
control of urban water systems, public health steadily improved in these areas through the first part
of the 20th century.33 It improved in rural areas with a steady increase in water and sanitation
infrastructure investment, starting in the 1930s, accelerating in the 1950s, and further increasing
substantially in the 1960s and 1970s, when government invested in basic services as part of President
Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiatives.34 Since 1970, the number of people living without access
to basic services and the number of waterborne disease outbreaks in rural America have steadily
declined, as investments in both infrastructure and technical assistance to help rural areas develop
water infrastructure have combined with the development of national regulations to protect
groundwater and drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) of 1973. This act was
strengthened in 1986 and amended in 1996 to provide both an ongoing process for assessing risk to
drinking water systems and processes for stakeholders to assess the feasibility of implementing new
safety rules.
It is important to recognize a major concern for those working to provide water and sanitation
infrastructure: While water infrastructure may be in place in many parts of the country, people may not be drinking
safe water. In 1999–2000, for instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 39
outbreaks of waterborne disease in 23 states, affecting 2,098 people. This was the highest number of
reported outbreaks since 1991–1992. The number of cases, however, should be distinguished from
their seriousness. While there were only 32 outbreaks of waterborne disease in 1993–1994 (Figure 2),
more than 400,000 people in Milwaukee, for instance, were affected by Cryptosporidiosis, the diarrheal
disease caused by a microscopic parasite Cryptosporidium parvum.35
33 National Academy of Sciences Committee on Privatization Services, Privatization of Water Services in the United States: An Assessment of
United States, 1999–2000, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 51 (SS08), Surveillance
Summaries, Atlanta, November 22, 2002, pages 1–28, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5108a1.htm, accessed May
4, 2004.
35
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In addition, USEPA reports that 91 percent of the total U.S. population is drinking water that meets
established health and safety standards for maximum contaminant levels. This percentage varies for
USEPA regions. It is 62 percent in the northeastern states (EPA Region 1: Connecticut, Maine,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont); 76 percent in the Mid-Atlantic states and
territories (EPA Region 2: New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands); 83 percent for EPA
Region 10 (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington); and over 90 percent for all other regions. U.S.
Geological Survey samples of drinking water from 12 water supply systems from 1999 to 2001
found atrazine and simazine in 85 percent of all raw and finished water samples and triazine-
herbicide degradation in 60 percent of raw and finished water samples.36 Volatile organic
compounds such as methyl teri-butyl ether have been found in 9 percent of community water
systems (at higher concentrations in systems serving urban rather than rural areas).37 All these
compounds have impacts on human health if continuously ingested in large enough quantities over
time.
While drinking water is relatively safe in the United States, the number of threats to its quality is
never-ending. Increasingly, one hears stories of communities once dependent on private wells that
have had to move to a centralized supply because of pollution of well supplies or diminishing
supplies caused by development or other pressures. The number is even greater for community
wastewater issues. In response to the 2000 Census, the residents in these communities are likely to
have answered that they had complete plumbing facilities. In considering the challenge of serving
those who still do not have access to basic services, it will be important to remember those
communities that may have to be transformed from having individual wells to community water
and wastewater systems in order to protect public health and the environment. The cost to the
communities is likely to be just as great, if not greater. And in many of these communities, income
levels are not likely to be high enough to support the investment in infrastructure without assistance.
Socioeconomic Conditions
For some populations that lack service, such as Alaska Natives, it is difficult to install and maintain
water infrastructure because of distance and climatic conditions. Sociocultural and economic factors
also are critical. Some Alaska Native villages, suffering from high unemployment and poverty, are
reluctant to put in conventional water and sanitation systems because the cost of installing and
maintaining systems in that environment would be unacceptably high. These factors explain, in part,
Alaska’s ranking as the state with the highest percentage of its population living with inadequate
access to complete plumbing services. But a range of other issues at the local level also come into
play, related to social organization and leadership, availability of technical expertise, and lack of
access to funding to support water infrastructure development. These same conditions affect access
to complete plumbing facilities in other parts of the United States where households still lack access
to water and sanitation.
36 U.S. Geological Survey, Pesticides in Selected Water Supply Reservoirs and Finished Drinking Water, 2001,
Supplies, Reston, Virginia, USGS, 2001, http://water.usgs.gov/FS/fs10501/, accessed December 10, 2003.
36
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The relationship between poverty and inadequate plumbing is clear. Of the 670,986 households
without access to complete plumbing facilities in the United States, one-third, or 222,906, had an
income in 1999 that was below the federal poverty level. Roughly the same proportions applied in a
rural-urban breakdown – 30.82 percent of all urban households lacking proper plumbing were poor,
and 37.92 percent of rural homes lacking plumbing were poor (Table 12).
Table 12. Percentage of Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
With Income in 1999 Below the Federal Poverty Level
Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
% of Units With Income Below 1999
Total
Poverty Level
U.S. – Overall 670,986 33.22
U.S. – Urban 444,019 30.82
U.S. – Rural 226,967 37.92
Nationwide, 1.79 percent of all poor households lacked plumbing, as did 1.37 percent of all urban
poor households and 3.52 percent of all rural poor households. Thus, a poor rural household is
almost 2.5 times as likely as a poor urban household in the United States to lack proper plumbing.
Of all the states, Alaska had the highest proportion: 18.85 percent of all its homes that were poor
also lacked proper plumbing. Kansas had the lowest proportion, at 0.83 percent. Taking into
account only the homes that lacked plumbing facilities, New Mexico had the highest percentage that
were also poor – 50.37 percent of its homes without plumbing were also below the federal poverty
level (Table 13).
Table 13. Percentage of Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities and
With Income in 1999 Below the Poverty Level, Top 10 States
Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
State % of Units With Income Below 1999
Total
Poverty Level
New Mexico 11,905 50.37
Arizona 21,088 47.60
West Virginia 7,451 46.84
Kentucky 14,947 46.58
Mississippi 9,015 46.00
Louisiana 10,717 42.10
Alabama 11,005 41.98
Texas 54,853 39.89
Arkansas 8,327 39.59
South Dakota 1,858 39.56
We also found that owner-occupied households below the poverty level were statistically more likely
than renter-occupied households to lack access to complete plumbing facilities, probably because of
regulations that require landlords to provide basic facilities. Of the owner-occupied households
living in poverty, 2.02 percent, or 88,211 households, lacked complete plumbing facilities in 2000.
Of the renter-occupied households below the poverty level, 1.67 percent, or 134,695 households,
reported lacking these facilities (Table 14). While people living in poverty were almost 4 times more
likely not to have complete plumbing facilities than those living above the poverty level, in pure
numeric terms more households above the poverty level than below who lack complete water and
sanitation. In some cases, the explanation may be that these people have chosen to live in isolation.
37
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Or, because of high home prices on the coasts, even people with incomes above the poverty level
may live in substandard housing.
Table 14 also shows that households above the poverty level were statistically less likely to have
incomplete plumbing facilities than households below the poverty level. Only 0.37 percent of
owner-occupied houses above the poverty level and 0.75 percent of renter-occupied houses above
the poverty level lacked complete facilities. The percentages demonstrate that income is a significant
variable in whether people have complete plumbing services. But the fact that the majority of people
living without complete water and sanitation facilities were not below the poverty level in 2000
indicates the importance of recognizing the geographic and social aspects of water services. Even
relatively wealthy people may lack certain services because they live in larger communities that lack
services.
Table 14. Plumbing Facilities by Household Type, 2000
Households Total Percentage
Total 105,480,101
Owner-occupied 69,816,513
Income in 1999 below poverty level 4,371,712
Complete plumbing facilities 4,283,501
Lacking complete plumbing facilities 88,211 2.02%
Income in 1999 at or above poverty level 65,444,801
Complete plumbing facilities 65,204,152
Lacking complete plumbing facilities 240,649 0.37%
Renter-occupied 35,663,588
Income in 1999 below poverty level 8,086,254
Complete plumbing facilities 7,951,559
Lacking complete plumbing facilities 134,695 1.67%
Income in 1999 at or above poverty level 27,577,334
Complete plumbing facilities 27,369,903
Lacking complete plumbing facilities 207,431 0.75%
Ruralness
A more significant finding is the relationship between ruralness and access to complete plumbing
facilities. Rural households, as has been discussed above, are more likely than urban ones to lack
access to complete plumbing facilities. Furthermore, all the counties where the percentage without
complete plumbing facilities is particularly high are non-metro—such as Star County, Texas, and
Navajo County, Arizona. As Table 1 showed, this has been the case for at least the past 50 years. By
their very nature, rural communities are hard to reach with basic services. They are also less likely to
have the human, financial, and built capital (e.g., buildings, facilities, plants) necessary for the
implementation of improved water systems. Equally important is the relationship among ruralness,
lack of proper plumbing, and level of poverty. As Table 15 shows, the more desolate (less
populated) the rural area, the more likely it is that a household that lacks proper plumbing is
also poor, by as much as 39 percent.
38
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Table 15. Percentage of Rural Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
With Income Below Poverty Level in 1999
Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing
Rural Level Percentage With Income in
Total
1999 Below Poverty Level
U.S. – Rural 226,967 37.92
U.S. – Rural – in a place 41,704 35.40
Rural – in a place of 2,500 or
9,156 29.51
more people
Rural – in a place of 1,000 to
13,288 37.45
2,500 people
Rural – in a place of fewer
19,260 36.80
than 1,000 people
Rural – not in a place 185,263 38.49
Nationally, rural communities are also more likely to be in violation of SDWA health and safety
regulations. The SDWIS 2003 Factoids demonstrate that smaller water systems are significantly
more likely to be in violation of health and safety standards. In keeping with that finding, this
analysis demonstrates that systems in violation of SDWA standards tend to be in counties where
more people lack complete plumbing facilities.
38 USEPA, Office of Watersheds, Oceans and Wetlands, Index of Watershed Indicators, 2004, http://www.epa.gov/iwi/;
http://www.epa.gov/safewater/data/pdfs/factoids_2003.pdf; http://www.epa.gov/safewater/data/pivottables.html, accessed May 25,
2004. There were 49,497 very small, small, and medium-size community water systems in the United States, of which 4,057 had health
safety violations in 2003.
39 USEPA Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water, Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS), 2004,
Sanitation Affordability," Rural Matters, Spring 2004, Rural Community Assistance Partnership, Washington, D.C.
39
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find themselves unable to afford water services without sacrificing other basic needs, even though
water services may be available.41
Demographics
Our analysis shows that the breakdown by age of the people lacking water and sanitation services
more or less mirrors the age distribution for the general population. The elderly (age 65 years and
older) make up just over 10 percent of the people who lack plumbing services (Table 16). People
younger than 15 constitute just over 32 percent of the total population that lacks plumbing facilities.
The elderly and children are most at risk from the consequences of waterborne disease. For this
reason, it will be important to continue to track the access to services as well as the quality of water
and sanitation services specifically for these age groups.
Table 16. Population in Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities,
by Age Group, 2000
Population in Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
Above 15 and
Below 5 years Below 15 years 65 years and above
below 65 years
Total Percentage Total Percentage Total Percentage Total Percentage
U.S. 143,117 8.01 443,291 24.80 1,019,009 57.01 181,897 10.18
Socioeconomic Immigration
As documented above, people living without access to plumbing services are not evenly distributed
across ethnic groups or across geographic areas. American Indians and Alaska Natives, Hispanics,
and African Americans all disproportionately lack access to services. Similarly, the populations living
with inadequate access to services are highest in four regions—the Four Corners region of the
Southwest; the Black Belt across the southern United States; California; and the Mexican border
regions of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Of these four regions, California is the most striking because in this area the population that
reported lacking services actually increased between 1990 and 2000. At first glance, this increase
appears strange because during most of that decade California’s economy boomed, led by the dot-
com boom in Silicon Valley. We hypothesize that two factors contributed to the rise of populations
in California living without access to water services. First, the boom of the 1990s led to an increase
in housing prices that far outstripped inflation and earning power for many people in California.
This situation was exacerbated when the economy began a downturn at the end of the decade. As
the economy soured, a relatively high number of people found themselves either homeless or living
in substandard housing. The socioeconomic conditions between 1995 and 2000, for example, led
345,573 Hispanics to leave California for nearby states.42 Second, the boom did open up high
numbers of very low-paying service jobs, which attracted immigrant labor. We suspect that most of
the immigrants came from Central and South America, where weakened economies made the
agricultural and service sector jobs in California seem an attractive economic opportunity. This
41Ibid.
42The net out-migration in this period was 345,573. Actually, 505,947 Hispanics left California but 160,374 Hispanics in-migrated
from other states into California during the same period. See http://www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/phc-t25.html,
accessed May 19, 2004.
40
Still Living Without the Basics
relative prosperity, though, did not provide these immigrants with adequate remuneration to pay for
housing with improved services, especially in California’s inflated housing market.
The Census records show that a total of 660,076 Hispanic immigrants moved to California during
the latter half of the 1990s.43 The large majority of these immigrants presumably worked in low-
paying service sector positions. Of a total of 5,781,105 Hispanic workers above the age of 16 in
California in 2000, more than 41 percent were employed in medium-, low- and very low-paying jobs
or were unemployed (Table 17).44 In addition, 19.55 percent of the Hispanic population in California
between the ages of 18 and 64 years were below the poverty level in 1999.45
Table 17. Number of Hispanics Employed by Occupation in California, 2000
Occupation Employed
Cooks and food preparation workers; waiters and waitresses 257,683
Other food preparation and serving workers, including supervisors 100,843
Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations 486,966
Secretaries and administrative assistants 92,185
Agricultural workers, including supervisors 283,245
Carpenters, painters, paperhangers, woodworkers, metal and plastic workers 266,255
Construction laborers; other construction workers and helpers 140,504
Food-processing workers 40,393
Textile, apparel, and furnishings workers 146,848
Bus drivers; driver/sales workers and truck drivers 184,004
Motor vehicle operators, except bus and truck drivers 9,374
Laborers and material movers, hand; other material moving workers, except laborers 291,749
Unemployed, with no work experience since 1995 80,340
Total 2,380,389
Tulare County, California, the poorest county in California, is an example. Tulare County is largely
agricultural and employs a high number of people as agricultural laborers. According to the Census,
more than 1,500 people in this county live without access to complete plumbing services. Onsite
observation by Public Citizen, a national nonprofit organization, revealed “communities without
running water, many issues of contaminated water from the fertilizers and pesticides used in
farming, and communities that buy their water from tanker trucks for 25 cents a gallon.”46
Housing Development
In contrast, the decrease in the numbers of people living without access to basic services in
Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi may be attributable to marginally better economic conditions.
With the improved economy, people began to move out of substandard housing units into
manufactured housing units, which often come with piped water units included. The number of
people living in mobile homes from 1990 to 2000 increased, on average in the three states, by 38.38
percent (Table 18). A critical issue of concern is that community or noncommunity water systems
that serve mobile home communities are more prone than other water systems to be in violation of
state and federal standards for health and the environment. Thus, while people may have access to
piped water, the water they are drinking may not be up to standards.
43 U.S. Census 2000, Migration by Race and Hispanic Origin for the Population 5 Years and Over for the United States, Regions,
States, and Puerto Rico: 2000, http://www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/phc-t25.html, accessed May 19, 2004.
44 Advanced Query Data Finder, http://advancedquery.census.gov, accessed May 19, 2004.
45Also, more than half (52.15 percent) of all poor Hispanic residents of California are in the age group of 18 to 64 years. Source: U.S.
41
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Table 18. Mobile Occupied Housing Units in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, 1990–2000
Mobile Occupied Housing Units
State
2000 1990 % Change from 1990
Alabama 269,000 187,613 43.38
Louisiana 204,912 161,751 26.68
Mississippi 168,520 114,900 46.67
Clearly, these are associations, as opposed to verifiable relationships. But they do provide an insight
into some of the hypotheses that will need to be developed and tested as we try to understand
further the relationships that contribute to the access to or loss of water and sanitation service.
42
Still Living Without the Basics
costs will be especially problematic for rural community water systems, because they are not
likely to have economies of scale to help them afford the treatment technology.
Even as the United States continues to provide some of the best and least costly access to basic
services in the world, new challenges are threatening those services. The combination of aging
infrastructure, new population distribution, and growing demands creates complex challenges to
overcome for ensuring that people have access to services. Indeed, in a time when both federal and
state governments claim record deficits and are cutting popular programs, communities are facing
expensive new demands for water and sanitation services. Many small, low-income communities are
looking at costs in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to repair, upgrade, or
expand water systems to meet new needs.
For example, a study by the West Central Initiative in Minnesota found that in the west central
counties of Minnesota – where the percentages of people without plumbing service are lower than
the national average – communities were increasingly faced with the challenge of repairing or
replacing aging infrastructure. The study found that these communities faced a funding gap of $813
million to upgrade infrastructure systems, many of which were initially installed in the 1930s.47
Donaldson, Minnesota, is one of those communities. With a population of only 57, a median
household income of $15,938 in 1999, and an annual city operating budget of less then $15,000, the
city was dumbfounded by the need to eliminate two serious public health hazards: untreated sewage
that was being discharged into a road ditch, and a half-dozen rundown housing structures that were
homes to vermin. The municipal storm water system, built in 1936, discharged into a highway ditch
west of town. Septic systems installed for indoor plumbing in the 1950s and 1960s let the effluent
discharge directly into the city storm water system. A high water table and tight clay soils made
drainfields very expensive, and they typically performed poorly. Although this type of system was
effective in getting the wastewater out of town, the untreated sewage draining down the highway
ditch created a public health violation. In addition to the costs of constructing a new wastewater
system, the city faced penalties and fines from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. The city
council also identified six properties that were in severe stages of neglect. Some had basements that
had six to eight feet of stagnant water, and others had dead animal carcasses and feces. All housed
some type of vermin. The structures had broken glass doors and windows, making it very easy for
children to gain access to the dangerous environment. Forcing the homeowners to clean up the
properties was not an option because the costs were insurmountable.
With the help of intermediaries to provide technical assistance, Donaldson has been able to contract
with an engineering firm to develop a solution that fits within the financial constraints of the
community. It also was able to secure a combination of loans and grants from state and federal
agencies, and it worked out a way to lower costs by doing some of the work itself, using local labor
and resources.48
While this case is taken from Minnesota, communities throughout the country are grappling with
similar issues. The critical point is that many communities will have to deal with such issues in the
future, even though the vast majority of U.S. residents have access to water and sanitation services.
47 West Central Initiative, West Central Initiative Infrastructure Study for West Central Minnesota Communities, 2000,
http://www.wcif.org/publications/infrastructurestudy.shtml, accessed May 24, 2004.
48 Case study taken from the Midwest Rural Community Assistance Program, New Prague, Minnesota.
43
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49 Peter Gleick, The World’s Water: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources, Island Press, Washington, D.C., 2003.
50 James Dao, “Ohio Town’s Water at Last Runs Past a Color Line,” New York Times, February 17, 2004, page A1.
51 Personal communication between the authors and the Environmental Finance Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
November 2003.
44
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yet more than 670,000 households–close to 2 million people–still lack these very basic services.
Getting water to this population will require explicitly addressing the environmental justice issues
that are embedded in social and economic frameworks related to access to water services. In
addition, as costs of managing water systems rise, more low-income residents will be hardpressed to
pay water bills, even as the states are cutting programs that subsidize low-income residents.
Ultimately, a significant effort that draws on government and private resources is needed to address
the gap in water service and make certain it slows in the next decade.
This report shows that the lack of plumbing services is still very real for almost 2 million Americans.
While the rural-urban divide in the provision of these services has narrowed in the last decade, it
persists and is intrinsically related to the socioeconomic status of the people who lack these services.
Rural populations are still at a larger risk of lacking proper services, as infrastructure ages and
traditional funding for improvement programs is slowly being reduced. Across the United States,
in general, minority communities are affected more acutely. There are wide fluctuations across
geographic locations and areas. Some prominent areas are the Four Corners region and the
underserved parts of the Northeast and the South. Alaska stands out as a single state that needs
much improvement in infrastructure. Given Alaska’s unique condition, policy makers must pay
attention to enhancing services there that are socially acceptable, economically feasible, and
environmentally sustainable.
A closer look at the numbers within states, at the county or Census-designated place levels, provides
a clearer understanding of the reality of lack in plumbing services. The information at the substate
level, disaggregated, also allows for relative geographic comparisons within and among states and
permits a clearer comprehension of the larger nationwide picture. Our hypothesis and affirmed
assumptions are based on this examination and understanding of the numbers at the disaggregated
level, which are shown in the pages ahead and which the readers might find useful.
In the future, we hope to take this research toward a more complex analysis of the links among
social, economic, geographic, environmental, and public health variables that affect the positive
outcomes in services for traditionally and currently underserved communities. Our findings will
allow us to understand better how to enhance communities’ capacity for improving infrastructure
and services and ultimately achieving sustainable development.
The following maps and ranking tables disaggregate the population without plumbing for all states at
the county level and for the D.C., Puerto Rico, and the island areas to the Census designated place
(CDP) level.
45
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46
Still Living Without the Basics
47
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48
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49
Still Living Without the Basics
States Ranked by Total Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities (2000)
Total
Percent of Percent change
occupied Total occupied Percent of Percent change in total
occupied in total
housing units housing units occupied occupied housing units
housing units occupied
lacking lacking housing units lacking complete
State / Territory lacking housing units
complete complete lacking complete plumbing facilities, from
complete from 1990 to
plumbing plumbing plumbing 1990 to 2000 (base
plumbing 2000 (base
facilities facilities (1990) facilities (1990) year = 1990)
facilities (2000) year = 1990)
(2000)
California 85460 0.74 57974 0.56 47.41 10.80
Puerto Rico 65640 5.20 NA NA NA NA
New York 58418 0.83 50428 0.76 15.84 6.29
Texas 54853 0.74 56844 0.94 -3.50 21.78
Florida 30134 0.48 22061 0.43 36.59 23.43
Pennsylvania 24450 0.51 26355 0.59 -7.23 6.25
Illinois 23959 0.52 21572 0.51 11.07 9.27
Arizona 21088 1.11 18352 1.34 14.91 38.90
Virginia 19550 0.72 35788 1.56 -45.37 17.77
Ohio 19407 0.44 24394 0.60 -20.44 8.76
North Carolina 19295 0.62 33192 1.32 -41.87 24.43
Georgia 17117 0.57 22921 0.97 -25.32 27.03
Michigan 16971 0.45 14687 0.43 15.55 10.71
New Jersey 16530 0.54 12914 0.46 28.00 9.66
Massachusetts 15211 0.62 9096 0.40 67.23 8.74
Kentucky 14947 0.94 33623 2.44 -55.55 15.28
Tennessee 14340 0.64 23840 1.29 -39.85 20.46
Alaska 14003 6.32 13489 7.14 3.81 17.30
Washington 12457 0.55 10128 0.54 23.00 21.31
Missouri 11923 0.54 14263 0.73 -16.41 11.90
New Mexico 11905 1.76 11898 2.19 0.06 24.92
Alabama 11005 0.63 20819 1.38 -47.14 15.28
Louisiana 10717 0.65 14318 0.95 -25.15 10.46
Wisconsin 10648 0.51 11780 0.65 -9.61 14.40
Indiana 10599 0.45 11288 0.55 -6.10 13.12
Minnesota 9581 0.51 9382 0.57 2.12 15.01
South Carolina 9521 0.62 16626 1.32 -42.73 21.92
Maryland 9033 0.46 10206 0.58 -11.49 13.26
Mississippi 9015 0.86 17625 1.93 -48.85 14.82
Arkansas 8327 0.80 13030 1.46 -36.09 17.00
Oklahoma 7546 0.56 7145 0.59 5.61 11.29
West Virginia 7451 1.01 15972 2.32 -53.35 6.96
Colorado 7243 0.44 4592 0.36 57.73 29.30
Oregon 7025 0.53 6426 0.58 9.32 20.88
Connecticut 6466 0.50 4383 0.36 47.52 5.79
Iowa 4832 0.42 5333 0.50 -9.39 7.98
Maine 4468 0.86 7477 1.61 -40.24 11.37
Kansas 4057 0.39 3695 0.39 9.80 9.86
Hawaii 3833 0.95 3365 0.94 13.91 13.18
Nevada 3638 0.48 1893 0.41 92.18 61.09
Utah 2906 0.41 2163 0.40 34.35 30.53
Montana 2776 0.77 2357 0.77 17.78 17.15
Idaho 2720 0.58 2246 0.62 21.10 30.20
Nebraska 2408 0.36 2253 0.37 6.88 10.60
New Hampshire 2254 0.47 2363 0.57 -4.61 15.42
Rhode Island 2194 0.54 1670 0.44 31.38 8.06
District of Columbia 2112 0.85 1585 0.63 33.25 -0.52
South Dakota 1858 0.64 2315 0.89 -19.74 12.05
Vermont 1481 0.62 1952 0.93 -24.13 14.23
North Dakota 1124 0.44 1558 0.65 -27.86 6.76
Delaware 1119 0.37 1160 0.47 -3.53 20.70
Wyoming 1011 0.52 897 0.53 12.71 14.67
50
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States of Territories Ranked by Percent of Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities (2000)
Total
Percent of Total occupied Percent change in
occupied Percent of Percent change
occupied housing units total occupied
housing units occupied housing in total occupied
housing units lacking housing units lacking
lacking units lacking housing units
State / Territory lacking complete complete plumbing
complete complete from 1990 to
complete plumbing facilities, from 1990 to
plumbing plumbing facilities 2000 (base year
plumbing facilities 2000 (base year =
facilities (1990) = 1990)
facilities (2000) (1990) 1990)
(2000)
Alaska 14003 6.32 13489 7.14 3.81 17.30
Puerto Rico 65640 5.20 NA NA NA NA
New Mexico 11905 1.76 11898 2.19 0.06 24.92
Arizona 21088 1.11 18352 1.34 14.91 38.90
West Virginia 7451 1.01 15972 2.32 -53.35 6.96
Hawaii 3833 0.95 3365 0.94 13.91 13.18
Kentucky 14947 0.94 33623 2.44 -55.55 15.28
Maine 4468 0.86 7477 1.61 -40.24 11.37
Mississippi 9015 0.86 17625 1.93 -48.85 14.82
District of Columbia 2112 0.85 1585 0.63 33.25 -0.52
New York 58418 0.83 50428 0.76 15.84 6.29
Arkansas 8327 0.80 13030 1.46 -36.09 17.00
Montana 2776 0.77 2357 0.77 17.78 17.15
California 85460 0.74 57974 0.56 47.41 10.80
Texas 54853 0.74 56844 0.94 -3.50 21.78
Virginia 19550 0.72 35788 1.56 -45.37 17.77
Louisiana 10717 0.65 14318 0.95 -25.15 10.46
Tennessee 14340 0.64 23840 1.29 -39.85 20.46
South Dakota 1858 0.64 2315 0.89 -19.74 12.05
Alabama 11005 0.63 20819 1.38 -47.14 15.28
Massachusetts 15211 0.62 9096 0.40 67.23 8.74
South Carolina 9521 0.62 16626 1.32 -42.73 21.92
North Carolina 19295 0.62 33192 1.32 -41.87 24.43
Vermont 1481 0.62 1952 0.93 -24.13 14.23
Idaho 2720 0.58 2246 0.62 21.10 30.20
Georgia 17117 0.57 22921 0.97 -25.32 27.03
Oklahoma 7546 0.56 7145 0.59 5.61 11.29
Washington 12457 0.55 10128 0.54 23.00 21.31
Missouri 11923 0.54 14263 0.73 -16.41 11.90
New Jersey 16530 0.54 12914 0.46 28.00 9.66
Rhode Island 2194 0.54 1670 0.44 31.38 8.06
Oregon 7025 0.53 6426 0.58 9.32 20.88
Wyoming 1011 0.52 897 0.53 12.71 14.67
Illinois 23959 0.52 21572 0.51 11.07 9.27
Pennsylvania 24450 0.51 26355 0.59 -7.23 6.25
Wisconsin 10648 0.51 11780 0.65 -9.61 14.40
Minnesota 9581 0.51 9382 0.57 2.12 15.01
Connecticut 6466 0.50 4383 0.36 47.52 5.79
Nevada 3638 0.48 1893 0.41 92.18 61.09
Florida 30134 0.48 22061 0.43 36.59 23.43
New Hampshire 2254 0.47 2363 0.57 -4.61 15.42
Maryland 9033 0.46 10206 0.58 -11.49 13.26
Indiana 10599 0.45 11288 0.55 -6.10 13.12
Michigan 16971 0.45 14687 0.43 15.55 10.71
North Dakota 1124 0.44 1558 0.65 -27.86 6.76
Colorado 7243 0.44 4592 0.36 57.73 29.30
Ohio 19407 0.44 24394 0.60 -20.44 8.76
Iowa 4832 0.42 5333 0.50 -9.39 7.98
Utah 2906 0.41 2163 0.40 34.35 30.53
Kansas 4057 0.39 3695 0.39 9.80 9.86
Delaware 1119 0.37 1160 0.47 -3.53 20.70
Nebraska 2408 0.36 2253 0.37 6.88 10.60
51
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States Ranked by Total Rural Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
Total rural Total rural
Percent of rural Percent change in Percent change
occupied occupied Percent of rural
occupied total rural occupied in total rural
housing units housing units occupied housing
housing units housing units lacking occupied
lacking lacking units lacking
State / Territory lacking complete plumbing housing units
complete complete complete
complete facilities, from 1990 to from 1990 to
plumbing plumbing plumbing facilities
plumbing 2000 (base year = 2000 (base year
facilities facilities (1990)
facilities (2000) 1990) = 1990)
(2000) (1990)
52
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States Ranked by Percent of Rural Occupied Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
53
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State-by-State
Analysis at County Level
55
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Explanation of Terms
( OHULP
OHU
) X 100 = % OHULP
ROHU Rural Occupied Housing This denotes all the rural occupied housing
Units units. The U.S. Census 2000 defines all
territories, population and housing units to be
rural which are not classified as “urban”. (For
a detailed definition of “urban”, please look at
the glossary.)
ROHULP Rural Occupied Housing This denotes all the rural occupied housing
Units Lacking Complete units, at the time of the census, that lacked
Plumbing Facilities complete plumbing facilities.
%ROHULP Percentage of Rural This is the percentage of rural occupied
Occupied Housing Units housing units (i.e. as a percentage of the total
Lacking Complete rural occupied housing units) that lack
Plumbing Facilities complete plumbing facilities. This is
calculated as:
( ROHULP
ROHU
) X 100 = % ROHULP
57
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Percent of OHULP below poverty Percentage of Occupied This is the percentage of occupied housing
level in 1999 Housing Units Lacking units that lack complete plumbing facilities,
Complete Plumbing and having a householder with an income in
Facilities, with Householder 1999 below the poverty level. The percentage
having Income in 1999 is calculated as:
below the Poverty Level OHULP below
Rural OHULP below poverty level in Rural Occupied Housing This denotes all the rural occupied housing
1999 Units Lacking Complete units that lack complete plumbing facilities,
Plumbing Facilities, with and having a householder with an income in
Householder having Income 1999 below the poverty level.
in 1999 below the Poverty
Level
Percent of Rural OHULP below Percentage of Rural This is the percentage of rural occupied
poverty level in 1999 Occupied Housing Units housing units that lack complete plumbing
Lacking Complete facilities, and having a householder with an
Plumbing Facilities, with income in 1999 below the poverty level. The
Householder having Income percentage is calculated as:
in 1999 below the Poverty
ROHULP below
Level
( ROHU below poverty
level in 1999
)
poverty level in 1999
X 100 =
% ROHULP below
poverty level in
1999
Percent of population above 65 years Percentage of the This denotes the percentage of the population
in OHULP Population above 65 years that is above 65 years and is living in
living in Occupied Housing occupied housing units lacking complete
Units Lacking Complete plumbing facilities. This is calculated as:
Plumbing Facilities Population above
( 65 years in OHULP
Population above
65 years in OHU
) X 100 = % Population above
65 year
Total population in OHULP Total Population in This denotes the total number of people living
Occupied Housing Units in occupied housing units that lack complete
Lacking Complete plumbing facilities.
Plumbing Facilities
58
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ALABAMA (AL)
59
Still Living Without the Basics
60
Still Living Without the Basics
61
Still Living Without the Basics
ALASKA (AK)
62
Still Living Without the Basics
63
Still Living Without the Basics
64
Still Living Without the Basics
ARIZONA (AZ)
65
Still Living Without the Basics
66
Still Living Without the Basics
ARKANSAS (AR)
67
Still Living Without the Basics
68
Still Living Without the Basics
69
Still Living Without the Basics
CALIFORNIA (CA)
70
Still Living Without the Basics
71
Still Living Without the Basics
COLORADO (CO)
72
Still Living Without the Basics
73
Still Living Without the Basics
CONNECTICUT (CT)
74
Still Living Without the Basics
DELAWARE (DE)
75
Still Living Without the Basics
76
Still Living Without the Basics
FLORIDA (FL)
77
Still Living Without the Basics
78
Still Living Without the Basics
79
Still Living Without the Basics
GEORGIA (GA)
80
Still Living Without the Basics
81
Still Living Without the Basics
82
Still Living Without the Basics
83
Still Living Without the Basics
HAWAII (HI)
84
Still Living Without the Basics
IDAHO (ID)
85
Still Living Without the Basics
86
Still Living Without the Basics
ILLINOIS (IL)
87
Still Living Without the Basics
88
Still Living Without the Basics
89
Still Living Without the Basics
INDIANA (IN)
90
Still Living Without the Basics
91
Still Living Without the Basics
92
Still Living Without the Basics
IOWA (IA)
93
Still Living Without the Basics
94
Still Living Without the Basics
95
Still Living Without the Basics
KANSAS (KS)
96
Still Living Without the Basics
97
Still Living Without the Basics
98
Still Living Without the Basics
KENTUCKY (KY)
99
Still Living Without the Basics
100
Still Living Without the Basics
101
Still Living Without the Basics
102
Still Living Without the Basics
LOUISIANA (LA)
103
Still Living Without the Basics
104
Still Living Without the Basics
MAINE (ME)
105
Still Living Without the Basics
106
Still Living Without the Basics
MARYLAND (MD)
107
Still Living Without the Basics
108
Still Living Without the Basics
MASSACHUSETTS (MA)
109
Still Living Without the Basics
MICHIGAN (MI)
110
Still Living Without the Basics
111
Still Living Without the Basics
112
Still Living Without the Basics
MINNESOTA (MN)
113
Still Living Without the Basics
114
Still Living Without the Basics
115
Still Living Without the Basics
MISSISSIPPI (MS)
116
Still Living Without the Basics
117
Still Living Without the Basics
118
Still Living Without the Basics
MISSOURI (MO)
119
Still Living Without the Basics
120
Still Living Without the Basics
121
Still Living Without the Basics
MONTANA (MT)
122
Still Living Without the Basics
123
Still Living Without the Basics
NEBRASKA (NE)
124
Still Living Without the Basics
125
Still Living Without the Basics
126
Still Living Without the Basics
NEVADA (NV)
127
Still Living Without the Basics
128
Still Living Without the Basics
129
Still Living Without the Basics
130
Still Living Without the Basics
131
Still Living Without the Basics
132
Still Living Without the Basics
133
Still Living Without the Basics
134
Still Living Without the Basics
135
Still Living Without the Basics
136
Still Living Without the Basics
137
Still Living Without the Basics
138
Still Living Without the Basics
139
Still Living Without the Basics
140
Still Living Without the Basics
141
Still Living Without the Basics
OHIO (OH)
142
Still Living Without the Basics
143
Still Living Without the Basics
144
Still Living Without the Basics
OKLAHOMA (OK)
145
Still Living Without the Basics
146
Still Living Without the Basics
147
Still Living Without the Basics
OREGON (OR)
148
Still Living Without the Basics
149
Still Living Without the Basics
PENNSYLVANIA (PA)
150
Still Living Without the Basics
151
Still Living Without the Basics
152
Still Living Without the Basics
153
Still Living Without the Basics
154
Still Living Without the Basics
155
Still Living Without the Basics
156
Still Living Without the Basics
157
Still Living Without the Basics
158
Still Living Without the Basics
TENNESSEE (TN)
159
Still Living Without the Basics
160
Still Living Without the Basics
161
Still Living Without the Basics
TEXAS (TX)
162
Still Living Without the Basics
163
Still Living Without the Basics
164
Still Living Without the Basics
165
Still Living Without the Basics
166
Still Living Without the Basics
167
Still Living Without the Basics
UTAH (UT)
168
Still Living Without the Basics
169
Still Living Without the Basics
VERMONT (VT)
Vermont
(VT) Occupied Housing Units (OHU)
Lacking Percent of Percent of Percent of Percent of
Complete Percent of Rural population OHULP Rural OHULP
Plumbing OHULP OHULP above 65 below below Total
Total Facilities (as % of (as % of years in poverty poverty level population
County OHU (OHULP) OHU) Rural OHU) OHULP level in 1999 in 1999 in OHULP
Addison 13068 81 0.62 0.70 0.74 2.76 3.07 138
Bennington 14846 65 0.44 0.55 0.24 0.71 0.79 137
Caledonia 11663 84 0.72 0.99 0.57 1.67 2.70 190
Chittenden 56452 197 0.35 0.38 0.10 0.52 0.49 414
Essex 2602 49 1.88 1.88 1.26 2.83 2.83 86
Franklin 16765 98 0.58 0.59 0.63 0.47 0.00 183
Grand Isle 2761 11 0.40 0.40 NA 0.00 0.00 16
Lamoille 9221 70 0.76 0.76 0.44 1.75 1.75 158
Orange 10936 156 1.43 1.46 1.67 3.93 3.98 356
Orleans 10446 92 0.88 1.03 0.97 1.77 2.29 166
Rutland 25678 115 0.45 0.67 0.48 0.75 1.52 252
Washington 23659 173 0.73 1.18 0.31 1.67 3.42 330
Windham 18375 140 0.76 1.04 0.49 0.92 1.66 284
Windsor 24162 150 0.62 0.75 0.38 2.51 3.04 247
170
Still Living Without the Basics
VIRGINIA (VA)
171
Still Living Without the Basics
172
Still Living Without the Basics
173
Still Living Without the Basics
174
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175
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WASHINGTON (WA)
176
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177
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178
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179
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WISCONSIN (WI)
180
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181
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182
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WYOMING (WY)
183
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184
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American Samoa (AS) Housing Units (HU) Occupied Housing Units (OHU)
Means of Sewage Disposal Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
Percent OHULP with
HU using HU using of OHULP Householder
Total HU using septic tank other Total Total (as % of below Poverty
District/Village HU public sewer or cesspool means (OHU) (OHULP) OHU) Level in 1999
Eastern District 4111 1829 2069 213 3845 1397 36.33 1028
Eastern District, Rural 382 74 290 18 339 146 43.07 113
Manu'a District 323 7 302 14 273 86 31.50 59
Manu'a District, Rural 323 7 302 14 273 86 31.50 59
Rose Island 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0
Rose Island, Rural 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0
Swains Island 8 0 7 1 7 6 85.71 4
Swains Island, Rural 8 0 7 1 7 6 85.71 4
Western District 5610 1956 3359 295 5224 2070 39.62 1657
Western District, Rural 551 3 493 55 491 262 53.36 209
Village
Aasu Village 57 1 51 5 50 31 62.00 28
Afao Village 23 0 22 1 22 9 40.91 8
Afono Village 109 0 104 5 90 40 44.44 31
Agugulu Village 8 0 7 1 7 2 28.57 1
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American Samoa (AS) Housing Units (HU) Occupied Housing Units (OHU)
Means of Sewage Disposal Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
Percent OHULP with
HU using HU using of OHULP Householder
Total HU using septic tank other Total Total (as % of below Poverty
District/Village HU public sewer or cesspool means (OHU) (OHULP) OHU) Level in 1999
Alao Village 104 9 92 3 93 52 55.91 41
Alega Village 13 3 9 1 13 4 30.77 2
Alofau Village 86 1 83 2 84 30 35.71 19
Amaluia Village 41 0 36 5 36 18 50.00 12
Amanave Village 58 0 50 8 52 38 73.08 29
Amaua Village 23 7 16 0 20 7 35.00 6
Amouli Village 76 0 71 5 74 28 37.84 20
Anua Village 11 8 3 0 9 3 33.33 2
Aoa Village 96 3 74 19 83 56 67.47 44
Aoloau Village 162 1 145 16 136 58 42.65 46
Asili Village 36 0 33 3 34 14 41.18 11
Atu'u Village 59 53 4 2 58 23 39.66 16
Aua Village 386 22 334 30 347 126 36.31 86
Auasi Village 19 0 17 2 17 7 41.18 5
Aumi Village 37 1 34 2 35 13 37.14 11
Aunu'u Village 88 59 25 4 79 40 50.63 31
Auto Village 45 4 36 5 42 12 28.57 6
Avaio Village 9 0 8 1 9 1 11.11 0
Faga'alu Village 204 130 64 10 195 66 33.85 48
Faga'itua Village 90 12 73 5 82 28 34.15 17
Fagali'i Village 48 0 39 9 44 27 61.36 24
Fagamalo Village 14 0 13 1 9 5 55.56 4
Faganeanea Village 31 3 27 1 29 8 27.59 6
Fagasa Village 137 35 91 11 130 53 40.77 44
Fagatogo Village 359 319 33 7 351 96 27.35 74
Failolo Village 21 0 17 4 20 13 65.00 11
Faleasao Village 37 1 34 2 29 5 17.24 3
Faleniu Village 315 91 212 12 308 171 55.52 146
Fatumafuti Village 19 6 10 3 16 6 37.50 4
Futiga Village 105 3 99 3 104 43 41.35 30
Ili'ili Village 470 91 354 25 423 136 32.15 103
Lauli'i Village 155 2 145 8 153 69 45.10 54
Leloaloa Village 93 9 76 8 81 27 33.33 16
Leone Village 600 29 547 24 577 170 29.46 129
Leusoali'i Village 34 0 34 0 32 10 31.25 7
Luma Village 58 2 56 0 52 8 15.38 7
Maia Village 30 1 26 3 25 8 32.00 3
Malaeimi Village 189 85 90 14 179 87 48.60 76
Malaeloa/Aitulagi Village 93 1 90 2 90 33 36.67 25
Malaeloa/Ituau Village 87 0 85 2 86 38 44.19 26
Maloata Village 5 0 5 0 4 2 50.00 2
Mapusagafou Village 285 17 249 19 272 129 47.43 116
Masausi Village 35 0 22 13 32 21 65.63 14
Masefau Village 73 2 66 5 68 33 48.53 24
Matu'u Village 71 6 64 1 70 4 5.71 3
Mesepa Village 80 69 9 2 73 26 35.62 20
Nua Village 28 0 27 1 26 12 46.15 8
Nu'uuli Village 905 727 136 42 868 332 38.25 259
Ofu Village 75 0 71 4 63 15 23.81 13
Olosega Village 62 0 58 4 48 34 70.83 22
Onenoa Village 29 0 29 0 26 17 65.38 11
Pagai Village 20 1 18 1 20 11 55.00 7
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American Samoa (AS) Housing Units (HU) Occupied Housing Units (OHU)
Means of Sewage Disposal Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
Percent OHULP with
HU using HU using of OHULP Householder
Total HU using septic tank other Total Total (as % of below Poverty
District/Village HU public sewer or cesspool means (OHU) (OHULP) OHU) Level in 1999
Pago Pago Village 742 579 140 23 708 226 31.92 169
Pava'ia'i Village 401 47 319 35 357 150 42.02 117
Poloa Village 37 0 34 3 36 24 66.67 18
Sa'ilele Village 18 0 16 2 18 12 66.67 7
Se'etaga Village 44 0 43 1 41 15 36.59 12
Sili Village 5 0 4 1 2 2 100.00 2
Si'ufaga Village 22 3 19 0 22 4 18.18 2
Swains Village 8 0 7 1 7 6 85.71 4
Tafuna Village 1488 1174 268 46 1362 446 32.75 348
Taputimu Village 100 8 84 8 97 44 45.36 36
Tula Village 81 3 73 5 75 35 46.67 29
Utulei Village 158 148 7 3 141 32 22.70 24
Utumea East Village 13 0 13 0 13 5 38.46 4
Utumea West Village 9 1 7 1 8 2 25.00 2
Vailoatai Village 159 3 147 9 158 62 39.24 52
Vaitogi Village 243 12 217 14 228 96 42.11 75
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Guam (GU)
191
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192
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No. Mariana Is. (MP) Housing Units (HU) Occupied Housing Units (OHU)
Means of Sewage Disposal Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
Percent OHULP with
HU using HU using of OHULP Householder
Municipality/Census Total HU using septic tank other Total Total (as % of below Poverty
Designated Place HU public sewer or cesspool means (OHU) (OHULP) OHU) Level in 1999
Northern Islands
Municipality 3 2 1 0 1 0 0.00 0
Northern Islands
Municipality, Rural 3 2 1 0 1 0 0.00 0
Rota Municipality 981 93 776 112 757 97 12.81 45
Rota Municipality, Rural 981 93 776 112 757 97 12.81 45
Saipan Municipality 15527 8251 6052 1224 12507 2004 16.02 1224
Saipan Municipality, Rural 299 89 151 59 213 58 27.23 33
Tinian Municipality 1055 253 695 107 790 200 25.32 113
Tinian Municipality, Rural 236 53 134 49 155 52 33.55 24
Census Designated
Place
Capital Hill 458 158 279 21 358 23 6.42 11
Chalan Kanoa 1035 902 80 53 856 116 13.55 75
Dandan 648 60 505 83 543 108 19.89 68
Garapan 1307 1166 120 21 979 82 8.38 41
Gualo Rai 348 182 153 13 305 58 19.02 31
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No. Mariana Is. (MP) Housing Units (HU) Occupied Housing Units (OHU)
Means of Sewage Disposal Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
Percent OHULP with
HU using HU using of OHULP Householder
Municipality/Census Total HU using septic tank other Total Total (as % of below Poverty
Designated Place HU public sewer or cesspool means (OHU) (OHULP) OHU) Level in 1999
Kagman 946 62 575 309 653 207 31.70 113
Koblerville 901 493 359 49 783 92 11.75 56
Navy Hill 310 273 35 2 221 21 9.50 13
San Antonio 888 606 270 12 743 53 7.13 31
San Jose (Saipan) 254 196 48 10 213 46 21.60 29
San Jose (Tinian) 529 159 331 39 383 85 22.19 53
San Roque 319 202 95 22 247 40 16.19 29
San Vicente 827 175 604 48 669 113 16.89 74
Songsong 364 63 291 10 298 19 6.38 11
Susupe 467 398 49 20 393 53 13.49 38
Tanapag 482 222 167 93 397 110 27.71 66
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U.S. Virgin Islands (VI) Housing Units (HU) Occupied Housing Units (OHU)
Means of Sewage Disposal Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
HU using HU using
Island/Census Total HU using septic tank other Total Total Percent of OHULP
Designated Place HU public sewer or cesspool means (OHU) (OHULP) (as % of OHU)
St. Croix Island 23782 11758 11177 847 19455 939 4.83
St. Croix Island, Rural 2850 503 2103 244 2063 57 2.76
St. John Island 2390 371 1855 164 1735 167 9.63
St. John Island, Rural 856 106 654 96 642 99 15.42
St. Thomas Island 24030 13748 9514 768 19458 656 3.37
St. Thomas Island, Rural 947 171 733 43 755 11 1.46
Census Designated
Place
Anna's Retreat CDP 3080 2456 528 96 2643 43 1.63
Charlotte Amalie town 5195 4859 237 99 4292 218 5.08
Charlotte Amalie East
CDP 1072 999 69 4 951 34 3.58
Charlotte Amalie West
CDP 2291 1955 317 19 1921 74 3.85
Christiansted town 1459 1347 75 37 1116 77 6.90
Cruz Bay CDP 1529 265 1197 67 1090 67 6.15
Frederiksted town 512 464 42 6 327 59 18.04
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U.S. Virgin Islands (VI) Housing Units (HU) Occupied Housing Units (OHU)
Means of Sewage Disposal Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities
HU using HU using
Island/Census Total HU using septic tank other Total Total Percent of OHULP
Designated Place HU public sewer or cesspool means (OHU) (OHULP) (as % of OHU)
Frederiksted Southeast
CDP 1154 748 389 17 986 52 5.27
Grove Place CDP 1073 706 341 26 980 70 7.14
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Glossary of Terms
Asian
Self-identification among people of Asian descent. There are 17 detailed Asian race and ethnic
categories used in for tabulating data in the Census 2000:
Borough
A county equivalent in Alaska, a minor civil division in New York, and an incorporated place in
Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
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Central place
The core incorporated place(s) or a census designated place of an urban area, usually consisting of
the most populous place(s) in the urban area plus additional places that qualify under Census Bureau
criteria. If the central place is also defined as an extended place, only the portion of the central place
contained within the urban area is recognized as the central place.
Census
A complete enumeration, usually of a population, but also of businesses and commercial
establishments, farms, governments, and so forth.
Census (decennial)
The census of population and housing, taken by the Census Bureau in years ending in 0 (zero).
Article I of the Constitution requires that a census be taken every ten years for the purpose of
reapportioning the U.S. House of Representatives.
Census area
The statistical equivalent of a county in Alaska. Census areas are delineated cooperatively by the state
of Alaska and the Census Bureau for statistical purposes in the portion of Alaska not within an
organized borough.
Central city
The largest city of a Metropolitan area (MA). Central cities are a basis for establishment of an MA.
Additional cities that meet specific criteria also are identified as central cities. In a number of
instances, only part of a city qualifies as central, because another part of the city extends beyond the
MA boundary.
Related term: Metropolitan area (MA)
City
A type of incorporated place in 49 states and the District of Columbia. In 23 states and the District
of Columbia, some or all cities are not part of any Minor Civil Division (MCD), and the Census
Bureau also treats these as county subdivisions, statistically equivalent to MCDs.
Related terms: Incorporated place, Minor civil division (MCD)
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Comunidad
Represents a census designated place that is not the representing governmental center of the
municipio in Puerto Rico. There are no incorporated places in Puerto Rico. For Census 2000 there
are no minimum population requirements. For 1990 comunidades had to have at least 1,000 people.
Related term: Municipio
Confidentiality
The guarantee made by law (Title 13, United States Code) to individuals who provide census
information regarding nondisclosure of that information to others.
For US Code, Title 13, see
http://factfinder.census.gov/home/en/epss/glossary_t.html#title_13_u.s._code
Consolidated city
An incorporated place that has combined its governmental functions with a county or sub-county
entity but contains one or more other incorporated places that continue to function as local
governments within the consolidated government.
Related term: Incorporated place
County subdivision
A legal or statistical division of a county recognized by the Census Bureau for data presentation. The
two major types of county subdivisions are census county divisions and minor civil divisions.
Related terms: Minor civil division (MCD), Unorganized territory
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Householder
The person, or one of the people, in whose name the home is owned, being bought, or rented. If
there is no such person present, any household member 15 years old and over can serve as the
householder for the purposes of the census.
Housing unit
A house, an apartment, a mobile home or trailer, a group of rooms, or a single room occupied as
separate living quarters, or if vacant, intended for occupancy as separate living quarters. Separate
living quarters are those in which the occupants live separately from any other individuals in the
building and which have direct access from outside the building or through a common hall. For
vacant units, the criteria of separateness and direct access are applied to the intended occupants
whenever possible.
1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins
are from Spain, the Spanish-speaking countries of Central or South America, the Caribbean, or those
identifying themselves generally as Spanish, Spanish-American, etc. Origin can be viewed as
ancestry, nationality, or country of birth of the person or person’s parents or ancestors prior to their
arrival in the United States.
Income
"Total income" is the sum of the amounts reported separately for wages, salary, commissions,
bonuses, or tips; self-employment income from own non-farm or farm businesses, including
proprietorships and partnerships; interest, dividends, net rental income, royalty income, or income
from estates and trusts; Social Security or Railroad Retirement income; Supplemental Security
Income (SSI); any public assistance or welfare payments from the state or local welfare office;
retirement, survivor, or disability pensions; and any other sources of income received regularly such
as Veterans' (VA) payments, unemployment compensation, child support, or alimony.
Incorporated place
A type of governmental unit incorporated under state law as a city, town (except the New England
states, New York, and Wisconsin), borough (except in Alaska and New York), or village and having
legally prescribed limits, powers, and functions.
Related terms: Census designated place (CDP), Place
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Living quarters
A housing unit is a house, an apartment, a mobile home or trailer, a group of rooms or a single
room occupied as separate living quarters or, if vacant, intended for occupancy as separate living
quarters. Separate living quarters are those in which the occupants live separately from any people in
the building and which have direct access from outside the building or through a common hall.
Related term: Housing unit
Long form
The decennial census questionnaire, sent to approximately one in six households for the 1980, 1990,
and 2000 censuses, contains all of the questions on the short form, as well as additional detailed
questions relating to the social, economic, and housing characteristics of each individual and
household. Information derived from the long form is referred to as sample data, and is tabulated
for geographic entities as small as the block group level in 1980, 1990, and 2000 census data
products.
Related terms: Census (decennial), Sample data, Short form
Metropolitan
Refers to those areas surrounding large and densely populated cities or towns.
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Municipio
Primary legal divisions of Puerto Rico. These are treated as county equivalents.
Nonmetropolitan
The area and population not located in any Metropolitan area (MA).
Parish
A type of governmental unit that is the primary legal subdivision of Louisiana, similar to a county in
other states.
Place
A concentration of population either legally bounded as an incorporated place, or identified as a
Census Designated Place (CDP) including comunidades and zonas urbanas in Puerto Rico.
Incorporated places have legal descriptions of borough (except in Alaska and New York), city, town
(except in New England, New York, and Wisconsin), or village.
Related terms: Census designated place (CDP), City, Comunidad, Incorporated place, Town, Zona
urbana
Plumbing facilities
The data on plumbing facilities were obtained from both occupied and vacant housing units.
Complete plumbing facilities include: (1) hot and cold piped water; (2) a flush toilet; and (3) a
bathtub or shower. All three facilities must be located in the housing unit.
Population
All people, male and female, child and adult, living in a given geographic area.
Population density
Total population or number of housing units within a geographic entity (for example, United States,
state, county, place) divided by the land area of that entity measured in square kilometers or square
miles. Density is expressed as both "people (or housing units) per square kilometer" and "people (or
housing units) per square mile" of land area.
Poverty
Following the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) Directive 14, the Census Bureau uses a
set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition to detect who is poor. If
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the total income for a family or unrelated individual falls below the relevant poverty threshold, then
the family or unrelated individual is classified as being "below the poverty level."
For a detailed description of how the poverty level is determined, see:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povdef.html
Related term: Income
Puerto Rico
The U.S. Census Bureau treats the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico as the equivalent of a state for
data presentation purposes. Puerto Rico is divided into legal government municipios, which are
statistically equivalent to counties.
Race
Race is a self-identification data item in which respondents choose the race or races with which they
most closely identify.
For Census 2000:
In 1997, after a lengthy analysis and public comment period, the Federal Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) revised the standards for how the Federal government would collect and present
data on race and ethnicity.
These new guidelines revised some of the racial categories used in 1990 and preceding censuses and
allowed respondents to report as many race categories as were necessary to identify themselves on
the Census 2000 questionnaire. The full report is available at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/race.pdf.
How the new guidelines affect Census 2000 results and the comparison with data from 1990:
Census 2000 race data are not directly comparable with data from 1990 and previous censuses. See
the Census 2000 Brief, "Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin" at
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-1.pdf.
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Rural
Territory, population and housing units not classified as urban. “Rural” classification cuts across
other hierarchies and can be in metropolitan or non-metropolitan areas.
Related terms: Urban, Metropolitan
Sample data
Population and housing information collected from the census long form for a one in six sample of
households in the United States and Puerto Rico, and on a continuous basis for selected areas in the
American Community Survey.
Related terms: Census (decennial), Long form
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Short Form
The decennial census questionnaire, sent to approximately five of six households for the 1980, 1990,
and 2000 censuses. For Census 2000, the questionnaire asked population questions related to
household relationship, sex, race, age and Hispanic or Latino origin and housing questions related to
tenure, occupancy, and vacancy status. The 1990 short form contained a question on marital status.
The questions contained on the short form also are asked on the long form, along with additional
questions.
Related terms: Census (decennial), Long form
Spanish/Hispanic/Latino
For Census 2000 and the American Community Survey: People who identify with the terms
"Hispanic" or "Latino" are those who classify themselves in one of the specific Hispanic or Latino
categories listed on the Census 2000 or ACS questionnaire—"Mexican," "Puerto Rican," or
"Cuban"—as well as those who indicate that they are "other Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino." Origin
can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the
person’s parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their
origin as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino may be of any race.
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Town
A type of minor civil division in the New England states, New York, and Wisconsin and a type of
incorporated place in 30 states and the Virgin Islands of the United States.
Related term: County subdivision
Unorganized Territory
Occur in 10 minor civil division (MCD) states where portions of counties are not included in any
legally established MCD or independent incorporated place. The pieces are recognized as one or
more separate county subdivisions for statistical data presentation purposes.
Urban
All territory, population and housing units in urbanized areas and in places of more than 2,500
persons outside of urbanized areas. "Urban" classification cuts across other hierarchies and can be in
metropolitan or non-metropolitan areas.
Related terms: Metropolitan, Rural
Urban Area
Collective term referring to all areas that are urban. For Census 2000, there are two types of urban
areas: urban clusters and urbanized areas.
Urban Cluster
A densely settled territory that has at least 2,500 people but fewer than 50,000. This is new for
Census 2000.
Usual residence
The living quarters where a person spends more nights during a year than any other place.
Related term: Living quarters
Village
A type of incorporated place in 20 states and American Samoa. The Census Bureau treats all villages
in New Jersey, South Dakota, and Wisconsin and some villages in Ohio as county subdivisions.
Zona Urbana
Represents a census designated place that is the governmental center of each municipio in Puerto
Rico. There are no incorporated places in Puerto Rico.
Related term: Municipio
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The RCAP Network
To determine what services are available
in your community, contact:
Midwest RCAP
Midwest Assistance Program
212 Lady Slipper Avenue NE
Post Office Box 81
New Prague, Minnesota 56071
(952) 758-4334
www.map-inc.org
Northeast RCAP
RCAP Solutions
218 Central Street
Winchendon, Massachusetts 01475
(978) 297-5300
www.rcapsolutions.org
Southeast RCAP
Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project
145 Campbell Avenue SW
Post Office Box 2868
Roanoke, Virginia 24001-2868
(540) 345-1184
www.sercap.org
Southern RCAP
Community Resource Group
Post Office Box 1543
Fayetteville, Arkansas 72702
(479) 443-2700
www.crg.org
Western RCAP
Rural Community Assistance Corporation
3120 Freeboard Drive, Suite 201 Funded by
West Sacramento, California 95691 Technical Assistance and Training Grant, United States
(916) 447-2854 Department of Agriculture (USDA), Rural Utilities Service,
Water and Environmental Programs
www.rcac.org
Community Capacity Development for Safe Drinking Water,
RCAP, Inc. United States Enviromental Protection Agency (USEPA),
Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water
1522 K Street NW, Suite 400
Solid Waste Management Grant, United States Department of Agriculture
Washington, DC 20005 (USDA), Rural Utilities Service, Water and Environmental Programs
(202) 408-1273 Small Community Wastewater Project, Environmental Protection Agency
www.rcap.org (USEPA), Office of Wastewater Management
Still Living Without the Basics in the 21st Century
(SPINE -- To be dropped in)