placestats

House price index (2000 = 100) and Income gap between arrivals and departures

Where House price index (2000 = 100) is higher, Income gap between arrivals and departures tends to be higher. The link is weak: +0.30 across 2,391 counties, on a scale from −1 (opposite) to +1 (in step). That figure compares places with the same population density, income and education, so those differences can't explain it. It holds inside states too. Measured separately within each of 38 states, the middle value of the link is +0.24.

Holds after adjusting

Every place, plotted

One dot for each place reporting both measures. Hover over or tap a dot to see its name and values. The thin line is the straight line that best fits the dots. The bold line, shown for counties, is the link after adjusting for density, income and education. A dot far from the lines is a place that does not follow the pattern.

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What each measure is

House price index (2000 = 100)

House prices compared with the same place in 2000, which is set to 100. A value of 250 means prices are 2.5 times what they were in 2000. It is not a price in dollars, so it shows growth, not which place costs more.

FHFA House Price Index · FHFA HPI all-transactions annual (developmental county/state), HPI with 2000 base

Income gap between arrivals and departures

How much richer the people moving in are than the people moving out. Positive means the area is trading up in income, whatever happens to its population. A shrinking place can still be trading up.

IRS county migration flows · IRS SOI migration, county aggregates

Highest and lowest

Where each measure is highest and lowest among the places reporting both (2023), with the other measure beside it. This is shown for every size of place where both are published. Metro-area values are added up from their counties. A measure that cannot be added up across counties, such as a middle value (median), has no metro figure. Counts are shown per 1,000 residents, since raw totals would only list the largest places. Cities and towns and ZIP codes are shown where the Census survey or the CDC publishes them; most other sources stop at the county. They are shown for places of 5,000 residents or more, and only where the survey’s margin of error is small enough for the figure to be usable. The CDC publishes its health estimates for cities in a version adjusted for age, so places with older or younger people can be compared fairly, but not for ZIP codes.

Counties

By house price index (2000 = 100)

House price index (2000 = 100)Income gap between arrivals and departures
Highest
Adams County, ID468$31,616
Williams County, ND466$-13,452
Shoshone County, ID465$5,308
Hamlin County, SD458$-3,177
Richland County, MT452$-8,466
Lowest
Luce County, MI136$-986
Coahoma County, MS140$1,489
Stephenson County, IL142$-8,581
Massac County, IL142$-1,696
McDonough County, IL143$262

By income gap between arrivals and departures

House price index (2000 = 100)Income gap between arrivals and departures
Highest
Collier County, FL384$157,090
Summit County, UT386$128,310
Greene County, GA240$110,120
Rappahannock County, VA284$83,064
Wasatch County, UT314$80,527
Lowest
San Francisco County, CA284$-56,521
Wilkes County, GA190$-49,848
Suffolk County, MA294$-33,014
Edmunds County, SD277$-32,421
Cook County, IL176$-32,267
States

By house price index (2000 = 100)

House price index (2000 = 100)Income gap between arrivals and departures
Highest
District of Columbia395$-30,567
Florida354$45,264
Hawaii353$7,251
Idaho344$16,814
Montana329$13,951
Lowest
Illinois173$-25,648
Michigan176$-3,894
West Virginia183$-1,959
Ohio184$-10,793
Mississippi190$3,418

By income gap between arrivals and departures

House price index (2000 = 100)Income gap between arrivals and departures
Highest
Florida354$45,264
South Carolina242$21,571
New Hampshire271$20,961
Idaho344$16,814
Montana329$13,951
Lowest
District of Columbia395$-30,567
Massachusetts250$-25,918
Illinois173$-25,648
Minnesota213$-18,642
New York254$-12,360
Metro areas — House price index (2000 = 100) is not published for metro areas

By income gap between arrivals and departures

House price index (2000 = 100)Income gap between arrivals and departures
Highest
Naples-Marco Island, FL—$157,090
Heber, UT—$122,810
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL—$68,990
Key West-Key Largo, FL—$66,300
Hilton Head Island-Bluffton-Port Royal, SC—$63,378
Lowest
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA—$-31,772
Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN—$-27,144
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH—$-25,543
Midland, TX—$-25,463
Nantucket, MA—$-24,466

Counties furthest from the pattern

Compared with the straight line that best fits all 2,392 counties: the five with far more income gap between arrivals and departures than their house price index (2000 = 100) would suggest, and the five with far less.

House price index (2000 = 100)Income gap between arrivals and departures
Above the line
Collier County, FL384$157,090
Summit County, UT386$128,310
Greene County, GA240$110,120
Rappahannock County, VA284$83,064
Wasatch County, UT314$80,527
Below the line
San Francisco County, CA284$-56,521
Wilkes County, GA190$-49,848
District of Columbia, DC395$-30,567
Suffolk County, MA294$-33,014
Arlington County, VA327$-29,967

Two series, one county

Both measures over time for a county you pick. The two charts are stacked, so they share only the years along the bottom. You can pick from the thirty largest counties reporting both. This panel covers 2010–2024, and a measure published only once shows as a single dot.

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Every version of the link

Each row measures the same link, from −1 to +1, in a different way. If the rows mostly agree, the link does not depend on one choice of method.

Before adjusting for anything+0.3462,391 counties reporting both
After adjusting for density, income and education+0.303the part of the link that is not just how urban, rich and educated a place is
Also adjusting for population size+0.319size taken out as well as density
Also comparing only within each state+0.235each county is compared only with others in its own state, so this is no longer a comparison between states
Giving bigger counties more weight+0.426the adjusted link for the average resident rather than the average county. With this weighting, the data counts for about 276 equally weighted counties
Middle value inside single states+0.242the link worked out inside each of 38 states with at least 20 counties reporting
Using ranks, after adjusting+0.298uses each county’s rank, not its value, so a few extreme counties cannot create the link

How much to believe it

Could it be chance?

The p-value is the chance of seeing a link this strong if there were really none. A value of 0.05 or less means the link is unlikely to be chance. Very small values are written in short form: 3.1e-16 means 0.00000000000000031, and the bigger the number after “e-”, the smaller the value. Treating every county as a separate case gives p = 9.6e-52. But counties in the same state tend to resemble each other, so the better figure allows for that: p = 8.9e-5. The site tested 24,090 pairs, and testing so many turns up some flukes. The q-value allows for that too. For this pair it is 5.6e-51.

Do nearby places look alike?

Moran’s I measures how much nearby places look alike: 0 means no map pattern, and higher means neighbours are more similar. For the part of each county that the adjustment leaves unexplained, it is +0.17 (p = 0.001). That unexplained part still clusters on the map. So some regional factor shared by both measures is not accounted for.

Did they change together?

The figures above compare counties at one moment. This asks a different question: where house price index (2000 = 100) rose most, did income gap between arrivals and departuresmove too? Each county’s change is compared with the average change in its own state. That takes out ups and downs that hit a whole region at once. Each change is the gap between two estimates that both contain some error. That error pulls these links towards zero, so a weak one is weak partly for that reason. The q column shows whether a link could be a fluke, allowing for the many pairs tested: 0.05 or less means it is unlikely to be chance.

PeriodCountiesChange togetherWithin statesq
2014–2019 the main test: each Census survey figure averages five years, and these two do not overlap; before the pandemic————
2019–2023 a repeat check: its two five-year survey figures both include 2019, and it covers the COVID years1,007-0.06-0.010.904

Not measurable over the main period, so only the second period is shown. How change is measured.

Related pairs

Association only. Nothing here shows that either measure changes the other. This describes counties, not the people in them. Two measures going together across places does not mean the same people have both. How the US county data works · Explore House price index (2000 = 100) and Income gap between arrivals and departures