Data from the American Community Survey provides an estimate of the number of foster children per census tract. The percentage is calculated by dividing the number of foster children in the census tract with the total population of children for each census tract.

Individuals in poverty is defined as those whose income in the past 12 months at the time of survey response was below poverty level. The poverty rate was calculated by dividing the number of individuals in poverty by the total overall population. The Census poverty measure compares the poverty threshold with income 12 months prior to the survey response. If an individual or household's income is below the poverty threshold, they are considered to be in poverty.

This index measures financial resilience, which combines six metrics (listed in source details) on a scale of 0-6. A high score (6) indicates a high level of financial resilience. Note: Data is not graphed due to lack of County-level data.

Our reference value was created by finding the values that stand out from the median for each metric comprised in the index. For each measure of financial resiliency, we identified whether the geographic area was higher than the reference value. If it was, the geographic area was assigned a 1 for that measure. For the two measures that are negative indicators (cost burden of homeowners and renters, uninsured), we assigned a 1 for the geographic areas that were not lower than the reference value. Then we added all the 1s to get the final index score. The calculation for each metric is made for each year, then the index calculation is made. We weighted each measure equally.

Caveat: Data is missing from 2019-2022 for zip code 74117 and from 2021-2022 for zip code 74171 on cost burden of homeowners and renters. The overall index score will be affected for those years and zip codes since they do not include a score for cost burden.