This report shows the number and percentage of households with children under 18 receiving public assistance in the past 12 months by household type. *Public assistance is defined here as Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Cash Public Assistance Income, or SNAP (Food Stamps).

This report uses data from the United States Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), an ongoing, national survey. The ACS replaces the Decennial Census “long form” and is now the only source for Census Bureau data on topics such as ancestry, educational attainment, income, spoken languages, migration, disability, employment, and housing features.

Vermont Insights uses 5-year ACS estimates to increase the reliability of the data for all geographic areas.

For more information on the ACS, including sampling and response rates for Vermont, see: http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/methodology.html.

Receipt of Public Assistance is not equal to eligibility. 

For complete information on the limitations of ACS data, go to http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/methodology.html.

Some considerations when using and interpreting the ACS data include:

ACS estimates represent the conditions that might have been present at any time within the estimate time period. ACS estimates should only be compared with like estimates. For example, 1-year data can only be compared with other 1-year data and cannot be compared with 3- or 5-year data.

If using the ACS for longitudinal analysis (comparisons over time), multi-year estimates should not overlap.