gini {ndi}

Gini Index based on Gini (1921)

Description

Retrieve the aspatial Gini Index of income inequality.

Usage

gini(geo = "tract", year = 2020, quiet = FALSE, ...)

Arguments

geo

Character string specifying the geography of the data either census tracts geo = "tract" (the default) or counties geo = "county".

year

Numeric. The year to compute the estimate. The default is 2020, and the years 2009 onward are currently available.

quiet

Logical. If TRUE, will display messages about potential missing census information

...

Arguments passed to get_acs to select state, county, and other arguments for census characteristics

Details

This function will retrieve the aspatial Gini Index of U.S. census tracts or counties for a specified geographical extent (e.g., the entire U.S. or a single state) based on Gini (1921) doi:10.2307/2223319.

The function uses the get_acs function to obtain U.S. Census Bureau 5-year American Community Survey estimates of the Gini Index for income inequality (ACS: B19083). The estimates are available for 2009 onward when ACS-5 data are available but are available from other U.S. Census Bureau surveys.

Use the internal state and county arguments within the get_acs function to specify geographic extent of the data output.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/income-inequality/about/metrics/gini-index.html: "The Gini Index is a summary measure of income inequality. The Gini coefficient incorporates the detailed shares data into a single statistic, which summarizes the dispersion of income across the entire income distribution. The Gini coefficient ranges from 0, indicating perfect equality (where everyone receives an equal share), to 1, perfect inequality (where only one recipient or group of recipients receives all the income). The Gini is based on the difference between the Lorenz curve (the observed cumulative income distribution) and the notion of a perfectly equal income distribution."

Value

An object of class 'list'. This is a named list with the following components:

gini

An object of class 'tbl' for the GEOID, name, and Gini index of specified census geographies.

missing

An object of class 'tbl' of the count and proportion of missingness for the Gini index.

See Also

get_acs for additional arguments for geographic extent selection (i.e., state and county).

Examples

## Not run: 
# Wrapped in \dontrun{} because these examples require a Census API key.
  
  # Tract-level metric (2020)
  gini(geo = "tract", state = "GA", year = 2020)
  
  # County-level metric (2020)
  gini(geo = "county", state = "GA", year = 2020)
  

## End(Not run)