Visualization: Measuring household experiences during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

An interactive visualization of household data on the effects of the pandemic.

To help understand the social and economic effects of the pandemic, the United States Census Bureau has created a program to gather and disseminate data. The program’s title and website is Household Pulse Survey.

The first data was collected on April 23, 2020. On that day, the U.S. had 865,585 reported cases, cumulative. Data is collected for all states and the 15 largest metropolitan areas each week.

The survey asks many questions, and there are six that the Bureau makes available in an interactive explorer, as follows.

Question 1: Income loss. Percentage of adults in households where someone had a loss in employment income since March 13, 2020.

Question 2: Income loss expected. Percentage of adults who expect someone in their household to have a loss in employment income in the next 4 weeks.

Question 3: Food insecurity. Percentage of adults in households where there was either sometimes or often not enough to eat in the last 7 days.

Question 4: Medical care delay. Percentage of adults who delayed getting medical care because of the COVID-19 pandemic in the last 4 weeks.

Question 5: Missed housing payment. Percentage of adults who missed last month’s rent or mortgage payment, or who have slight or no confidence that their household can pay next month’s rent or mortgage on time.

Question 6: Distance learning. Percentage of adults in households with children in public or private school, where classes were taught in a distance learning format, or changed in some other way.

I have gathered this data for the states and created an interactive visualization. The data is presented in a table, two charts, and a map. You may select the time frame, questions, and states that appear.

To access the visualization, click here. For more visualizations, click here.

Example from the visualization. Click for larger.
Example from the visualization. Click for larger.