Highlights from the survey, which is made available through the U.S. Census Bureau, are summarized annually to provide a snapshot of the county, said Tara Carmean, senior planner with Travis County’s Health and Human Services department.
There were about 1,176,558 people living in Travis County as of 2015, with 869,587 of them living in Austin, according to the survey. From 2011 to 2015, the Travis County population grew 11 percent compared with 7 percent statewide and 3 percent nationally, Carmean said.
Here were three areas of interest from the survey:
Housing affordability
About 46 percent of residential property renters in Travis County experience a cost burden—meaning 30 percent or more of income is being spent on rent. More findings:
- For 21 percent of renters the cost burden is severe, meaning at least half of income is spent on rent.
- Travis County's median household income increased by $12,233 to $65,269 annually, which is $10,000 higher than in the state of Texas and the U.S. and follows a trend of annual increases, Carmean said.
- The median contract rent in Travis County in 2015 was $976 compared with $774 in Texas and $812 in the U.S., Carmean said.
Poverty in Austin
About 13 percent of all Travis County residents were living in poverty in 2015. More findings:
- About one-third of Travis County residents live at or below 200 percent of the poverty threshold—for a single person under 64 years of age, living at or below 200 percent of poverty threshold would mean that person earns a salary of about $24,662.
- For a family of four living at or below 200 percent of the poverty threshold, annual income is around $48,072 or less.
- Around 18 percent of children were living in poverty last year.
Poverty rates decreased compared with 2011 numbers, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing, Travis County Commissioner Margaret Gómez said.
“Families have been moved out of Travis County and Austin, which reduces the poverty rate here, but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t gone somewhere else—we’re not fixing it; we’re just redistributing it to other counties,” she said.
Affordable Care Act's effects
About 14 percent of the county’s residents did not have health insurance in 2015. Most uninsured residents were between 18 and 64 years old, and between 2011-2015 the number of insured Travis County residents grew by 18 percent.
“That has been a pretty significant drop, and that has been a direct corollary to the implementation of Obamacare,” Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt said.
