Just over half of U.S. Hispanic adults (54%) get their news mostly in English – far higher than the share who get their news mostly in Spanish (21%). About a quarter of Hispanic Americans (23%) say they consume news in both languages about equally.

There is an almost identical pattern on the question of preferred language for news: 51% prefer to get their news in English, 24% prefer Spanish and 23% say they do not have a preference.

But a new Pew Research Center survey of adults who identify as Hispanic or Latino finds major differences in news consumption habits between U.S.-born Hispanics and those who immigrated from other countries.

While U.S.-born Latinos overwhelmingly get their news in English, and prefer it in English, those born outside the United States have much more varied habits: 41% get their news mostly in Spanish, 26% get it primarily in English and 31% do both about equally. Similarly, 47% of Latino immigrants prefer to get their news in Spanish, while 22% prefer English and 31% do not express a preference.

Among Latino immigrants, those who have spent more years in the U.S. are less inclined than more recent arrivals to get news in Spanish, and more inclined to get it in English. There is little difference in the shares who get news in both languages about equally.

Jump to more information on the languages in which U.S. Latinos consume news.

We asked these questions to better understand how a group that makes up nearly one-in-five Americans stays informed, especially as its demographics and use of Spanish continue to change. Immigrants are declining as a share of all U.S. Hispanics, and the share of Hispanics who speak Spanish at home has also dropped – even though the number of Hispanics who speak Spanish at home has increased due to overall growth in the Hispanic population.

Other key findings about Hispanics’ news consumption include:

Most Latino adults prefer digital devices for news

Latinos get their news from a variety of sources, but most say they prefer to use digital devices over other platforms. Nearly nine-in-ten (87%) say they get news from digital devices at least sometimes, and 65% say they prefer this form of news over TV, radio or print. Digital devices have become an increasingly common source for news among Latinos – and among Americans overall – in recent decades, a shift driven by the rise of the internet.

Latinos are more likely than White Americans (55%) and Black Americans (50%) to prefer getting news from digital devices. Latinos also are more likely than White and Black adults to get news from social media, at least in part because Latino adults tend to be younger than other groups, and young adults are more inclined to use social media for news.

Nearly three-quarters of Latino adults under 50 (73%) prefer to get their news on digital devices, including 27% who prefer social media specifically.

Jump to more information on the platforms where U.S. Latinos get news.

Attention to news is declining among U.S. Latinos

About one-in-five Latino adults (22%) say they follow the news all or most of the time, while an additional 36% follow the news some of the time. The share of Latinos who follow the news all or most of the time has fluctuated in recent years but has dropped by 9 percentage points between 2020 (31%) and 2023 (22%), similar to a pattern seen across the general U.S. public.

In recent years, Hispanic Americans have followed the news less closely than Black and White Americans. Again, the high share of young adults within the Hispanic population plays a role, because young people are less likely to follow the news closely. Among Hispanic adults ages 18 to 29, just 10% say they follow the news all or most of the time – far below the share of Hispanics ages 65 and older who do so (44%).

Jump to more information on U.S. Hispanics’ news consumption habits.

Half of Hispanic adults get news from Hispanic news outlets

Half of U.S. Hispanic adults say they at least sometimes get news from Hispanic news outlets – those that specifically cater to Hispanic audiences. This includes 21% who say they do this extremely or very often. Just over half of Hispanics (54%) get news about their or their family’s country of origin at least sometimes, including 24% who do this often. 

Hispanic immigrants are much more likely than U.S.-born Hispanics to get news from Hispanic outlets and about their origin country. In both cases, about seven-in-ten immigrants say they at least sometimes get these types of news: 69% get news from Hispanic outlets and 72% get news about their country of origin. Among Hispanic adults who were born in the U.S., 33% at least sometimes get news from Hispanic outlets, and 38% get news about their family’s country of origin.

There are further differences among U.S.-born Hispanics: Those whose parents were also born in the U.S. are even less likely than those with one or more immigrant parent to get these types of news.

Jump to more information on Hispanic news outlets and news about Hispanic Americans’ origin countries.

About one-in-five Hispanic adults (22%) say they follow the news all or most of the time, down from 28% in 2022. The share of U.S. adults overall who say they closely follow the news also has been declining.

Although we did not ask this question of the overall U.S. population in 2023, Latinos were less likely than White and Black Americans to say they closely follow the news in previous years. In 2022, for example, 43% of White adults and 35% of Black adults said they follow the news all or most of the time, compared with 28% of Latino adults.

These differences are at least partially due to age. Hispanic adults tend to be younger than White and Black adults, and younger people are less likely to follow the news closely.

Like the general population, most U.S. Latinos say they follow the news less than closely: Around a third (36%) say they follow the news some of the time, while 23% say they do so only now and then. And 17% of Latinos say they hardly ever follow the news.

Demographic patterns in news consumption among Latino adults parallel those seen in the broader U.S. population:

• Older Latino adults are much more likely than their younger counterparts to say they follow the news all or most of the time.
• Latino adults with higher levels of income and formal education are more likely than those with lower levels of income and education to say they closely follow the news. These patterns persist even when accounting for age.

There also are modest differences by language of news consumption. A quarter of Latinos who get their news mostly in English say they follow the news all or most of the time, compared with 19% of those who get news mostly in Spanish.

And 21% of Latinos who get news in both languages equally say they closely follow the news. There are no significant differences by overall language proficiency. English-dominant (22%), Spanish-dominant (21%) and bilingual (24%) Latinos closely follow the news at similar rates.

Where do Hispanic Americans get news?

In a separate Center survey from fall 2023, we looked at how often U.S. adults get news from different platforms. Hispanic Americans and other racial and ethnic groups say they turn to various platforms for news at similar rates.

By far the most common way that U.S. Hispanics – and Americans overall – get news is from a smartphone, computer or tablet. Nearly nine-in-ten Hispanic adults (87%) say they often or sometimes get news from digital devices. This includes getting news from search engines (74% say they do so at least sometimes), news websites or apps (60%), social media (56%) and podcasts (31%).

About six-in-ten Hispanic adults (62%) say they get news from television at least sometimes. Nearly half (48%) turn to radio at least sometimes for news, and 32% say the same about print publications.

The survey also asked people how they prefer to get news. On that question, Hispanic Americans are somewhat more likely than Black and White Americans to prefer digital devices for news: Nearly two-thirds of Hispanic adults (65%) say they prefer to get news on a digital device over other platforms, compared with 55% of White adults and 50% of Black adults. (At 78%, English-speaking Asian adults are even more likely to prefer digital devices.)

Hispanic Americans also are more likely than Black and White Americans to prefer social media in particular for news. Roughly one-in-five Hispanic adults (21%) say they prefer social media for getting news, while 13% of Black Americans and 10% of White Americans say the same. English-speaking Asian Americans prefer social media at a similar rate to Hispanic Americans (19%).

Some differences extend to specific social media sites, too. For example, 29% of Hispanic adults say they regularly get news on Instagram, and 25% say the same about TikTok. Just 9% of White Americans say they regularly get news on each site.

Once again, these patterns are at least partially due to the relatively young age of the Latino population. Younger people prefer digital devices and social media for news at higher rates. Among Latino adults ages 18 to 49, 73% prefer to get their news on digital devices, including 27% who prefer social media specifically. Among Latinos ages 50 and older, 43% prefer digital devices and just 5% prefer social media.

Similar shares of Latino adults under 50 and all U.S. adults under 50 prefer digital devices for news. But these younger Latinos are somewhat more likely than all U.S. adults under 50 to prefer social media (27% vs. 20%).

While two-thirds of U.S. Latinos say they can read a newspaper or book in Spanish at least pretty well, just 21% say they mostly consume news in Spanish.

Just over half of Hispanics (54%) report getting news mostly in English, while 23% say they consume news in both languages about equally. Only 1% say they mostly get news in a language that isn’t English or Spanish.

The survey also asked respondents what language they prefer for their news, regardless of their actual news consumption habits.

The results are similar: 51% say they prefer to get news in English, while 24% prefer Spanish and 23% say they don’t have a preference between the two. Fewer than 1% prefer to get news in a language other than Spanish or English.

Given the variety of language preferences and habits among U.S. Latinos, some news outlets offer multiple options for Spanish-speaking and Latino audiences. These include Spanish-language newscasts and translations of English-language news stories into Spanish. Some outlets like the Los Angeles Times provide not only Spanish-language news but also news specific to English-dominant Latinos.

Major differences between U.S.-born Latinos and immigrants

Latino immigrants are much more likely than U.S.-born Latinos to say they mainly consume news in Spanish. On the other hand, those born in the U.S. overwhelmingly turn to English-language news.

• Spanish-language news: 41% of Latino immigrants say they mostly get news in Spanish, compared with just 2% of U.S.-born Latinos.
• English-language news: 81% of U.S.-born Latinos say they mainly get news in English, while 26% of Latino immigrants say this.
• Both about equally: Latino immigrants are about twice as likely as those born in the U.S. to say they get news in both Spanish and English about equally (31% vs. 16%).

Latino immigrants who have spent more time in the U.S. are less likely than more recent arrivals to mostly consume news in Spanish, and they are more inclined to turn to English-language news instead.

Just over half of Latino adults who arrived in the U.S. in the past 10 years (56%) say they get news mostly in Spanish, while just 10% say they get news primarily in English. By contrast, among those who arrived more than 20 years ago, similar shares consume news mainly in Spanish (32%) and mainly in English (35%). About three-in-ten in both groups say they consume news in both languages equally.

Although a large majority of U.S.-born Hispanics consume news primarily in English, those whose parents were also born in the U.S. are especially likely to do this. While 73% of second-generation Hispanics (those with at least one immigrant parent) get news mainly in English, 92% of Hispanics who are third generation or higher (U.S.-born Hispanics with U.S.-born parents) say the same.

Second-generation Hispanics are more likely than those who are third generation or higher to get news about equally in both English and Spanish (22% vs. 5%). Very small shares of both groups get news mostly in Spanish (3% vs. 1%).

There are similar patterns across these groups on the question about which language Latinos prefer for news. It is worth noting, however, that Latino immigrants who came to the U.S. in the last 10 years are more likely to say they prefer news in Spanish than actually get news mostly in Spanish (68% vs. 56%).

Bilingual Hispanics much more likely to get news in English than Spanish

The primary language of news consumption among Latino Americans largely aligns with whether they are Spanish dominant, bilingual or English dominant (definitions for these terms are available in the Terminology section at the top of the overview). But about a third of Spanish-dominant U.S. Latinos report consuming at least as much news in English as in Spanish.

• Nine-in-ten English-dominant Hispanics consume news mostly in English, while 7% get news in English and Spanish about equally. Very few (1%) get mostly Spanish-language news.
• A smaller majority of Spanish-dominant Hispanics (64%) say they get news mainly in Spanish, while 29% consume about the same amount of news in English and Spanish and 5% get most of their news in English.
• Among bilingual Hispanics, 55% report getting news mostly in English, much higher than the share who say they primarily consume news in Spanish (9%). Roughly a third of bilingual Hispanics (34%) report consuming news in Spanish and English equally.

Half of Hispanic Americans say that they at least sometimes get news from Hispanic news outlets – outlets that focus on providing news and information specifically to Hispanic audiences, whether in Spanish, English or another language. This includes about 21% who say they get news from Hispanic news outlets extremely or very often.

Although the survey did not gauge respondents’ interaction with any specific Hispanic news outlets, a previous Pew Research Center study found that both of the largest Spanish-language television networks – Univision and Telemundo – have experienced declines in viewership in recent years, despite the continued growth of the U.S. Hispanic population.

Related: Hispanic and Black News Media Fact Sheet

The survey also asked U.S. Latinos, who trace their roots to many different countries, how often they get news about their country of origin or the country their Hispanic ancestors came from. Just over half of Latino Americans say they at least sometimes get news about their origin country, including 24% who do this extremely or very often.

U.S.-born Hispanics less likely to engage with Hispanic news outlets

Hispanic immigrants are roughly twice as likely as those born in the U.S. to get news from Hispanic outlets and to get news about their ancestral homeland.

• Hispanic news outlets: 69% of Hispanic immigrants say they at least sometimes get news from Hispanic news outlets, compared with a third of those born in the U.S.
• News about origin countries: 72% of Hispanic immigrants at least sometimes get news about their country of origin, versus 38% of U.S.-born Hispanics who say the same about their ancestors’ country.

The shares of Hispanic immigrants who get news from Hispanic outlets and news about their country of origin are relatively stable regardless of how many years they have been in the U.S. For instance, 75% of Hispanic immigrants who have been in the U.S. for 10 years or fewer say they get news about their country of origin at least sometimes, compared with 70% of those who have lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years.

However, there are differences among U.S.-born Latinos based on how long their family has been in the country. Second-generation Latinos (who have at least one immigrant parent) are about twice as likely as those who are third generation or higher (who have U.S.-born parents) to get news from Hispanic news outlets and news about their family’s country of origin.

• 43% of second-generation Latinos say they get news from Hispanic news outlets at least sometimes, compared with just 19% of Latinos who are third generation or higher.
• And nearly half of second-generation Latinos (48%) say they get news about their family’s country of origin at least sometimes, whereas only about a quarter of Latino Americans who are third generation or higher say the same (24%).

Latinos with lower levels of income more likely to get news from Hispanic outlets and about origin countries

Latinos who have lower incomes are more likely than those who have higher levels of income to get news from Hispanic media outlets and about their country of origin.

• While 57% of Hispanic adults with lower incomes say they get news from Hispanic media outlets at least sometimes, just 29% of upper-income Hispanic adults get news from these outlets.
• 58% of lower-income Hispanics say they get news about their ancestral homeland at least sometimes, compared with 50% among middle-income Hispanics and 45% among upper-income Hispanics.

Who gets news from Hispanic outlets and about origin countries?

We can also look at these questions from the opposite direction: For example, among Latinos who get news from Hispanic news outlets at least sometimes, how many mostly consume news in Spanish or English?

While Latino adults who get news from Hispanic outlets are generally similar to the overall Latino population in the U.S. in terms of age, gender and other demographic factors, they differ in some key ways: what languages they speak, in what languages they consume news and where they were born.

• Spanish-speaking Latinos, including those who are bilingual, make up the majority of the audience for Hispanic media outlets. About four-in-ten Latinos who say they get news from these outlets at least sometimes are predominantly Spanish speakers (43%), and a similar share are bilingual (41%). By contrast, among Latinos who rarely or never get news from Hispanic news outlets, a majority (60%) are predominantly English speakers.
• But news consumers of Hispanic media outlets are diverse in their language of news consumption. About a third of those who use these outlets at least sometimes (34%) get their news mostly in Spanish, while 29% get their news mainly in English and 35% consume news about equally in both languages. Latino adults who rarely or never get news from Hispanic outlets, meanwhile, overwhelmingly get their news in English (81%).

• Nearly two-thirds of Latinos who get news from Hispanic media outlets (63%) are immigrants. Among Latinos who do not get news from these outlets, 29% are immigrants.

Similar patterns arise when looking at those who get news about their or their family’s country of origin.

• 39% of Latinos who at least sometimes get news about their ancestral homeland are predominantly Spanish speaking, and a similar share (40%) are bilingual. Just 20% are predominantly English speaking. Among Latinos who rarely or never consume news about their origin country, 59% primarily speak English.
• 30% of Latinos who get news about their or their family’s country of origin mainly get their news in Spanish, while 38% get their news in English and 31% get their news in both English and Spanish equally. Latinos who rarely or never get such news, meanwhile, tend to consume their news in English (76%).
• 62% of Latinos who get news about their or their family’s country of origin are immigrants, compared with 27% among Latinos who rarely or never get news about their origin country.

Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. This is the latest report in Pew Research Center’s ongoing investigation of the state of news, information and journalism in the digital age, a research program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This report is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of the Center’s news and information research team, race and ethnicity research team, methods, communications, design, digital and editorial teams. Find related reports online at journalism.org.

Research

Sarah Naseer, Research Assistant
Christopher St. Aubin, Research Assistant  
Michael Lipka, Associate Director, News and Information Research        
Kirsten Eddy, Senior Researcher                  
Katerina Eva Matsa, Director, News and Information Research               
Luis Noe-Bustamante, Research Associate 
Carolyne Im, Research Assistant
Mark Hugo Lopez, Director, Race and Ethnicity Research 
Sahana Mukherjee, Associate Director, Race and Ethnicity Research      
Jacob Liedke, Research Analyst                                          
Jens Manuel Krogstad, Senior Writer and Editor  
Elisa Shearer, Senior Researcher                
Naomi Forman-Katz, Research Analyst
Luxuan Wang, Research Associate
Mohamad Moslimani, Research Assistant

Editorial and Graphic Design

Anna Jackson, Editorial Assistant                           
Kaitlyn Radde, Associate Information Graphics Designer
Peter Bell, Associate Director, Design and Production                               
Claire Dannenbaum, Assistant Audience Editor                             
Andrea Caumont, Associate Director, Digital Outreach

Communications and Web Publishing

Sogand Afkari, Communications Manager                         
Tanya Arditi, Senior Communications Manager
Maya Pottiger, Communications Associate 
Sara Atske, Digital Producer                       

In addition, the project benefited greatly from the guidance of the Pew Research Center methodology team: Courtney Kennedy, Andrew Mercer, Ashley Amaya, Dorene Asare-Marfo, Dana Popky, Anna Brown and Arnold Lau. 

The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Overview

The American Trends Panel (ATP), created by Pew Research Center, is a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults. Panelists participate via self-administered web surveys. Panelists who do not have internet access at home are provided with a tablet and wireless internet connection. Interviews are conducted in both English and Spanish. The panel is being managed by Ipsos.

Most of the data in this report is drawn from ATP Wave 138, conducted from Nov. 6 to Nov. 19, 2023, among a sample of U.S. adults who identify as Hispanic. A total of 5,078 panelists responded out of 8,720 who were sampled, for a response rate of 61% (AAPOR RR3). This included 1,524 respondents from the ATP and an additional 3,554 from Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel (KP). The cumulative response rate accounting for nonresponse to the recruitment surveys and attrition is 1%. The break-off rate among panelists who logged on to the survey and completed at least one item is 3%. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 5,078 respondents is plus or minus 2.0 percentage points.

The questions about how often people get news from various platforms, which platforms they prefer for getting news and which social media sites they get news from are from a different survey of 8,842 U.S. adults, including 1,193 Hispanic adults, conducted from Sept. 25 to Oct. 1, 2023, entirely on the ATP (Wave 135). Refer to the methodology for more details.

Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. This is the latest report in Pew Research Center’s ongoing investigation of the state of news, information and journalism in the digital age, a research program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Panel recruitment

The ATP was created in 2014, with the first cohort of panelists invited to join the panel at the end of a large, national, landline and cellphone random-digit-dial survey that was conducted in both English and Spanish. Two additional recruitments were conducted using the same method in 2015 and 2017, respectively. Across these three surveys, a total of 19,718 adults were invited to join the ATP, of whom 9,942 (50%) agreed to participate.

In August 2018, the ATP switched from telephone to address-based sampling (ABS) recruitment. A study cover letter and a pre-incentive are mailed to a stratified, random sample of households selected from the U.S. Postal Service’s Delivery Sequence File. This Postal Service file has been estimated to cover as much as 98% of the population, although some studies suggest that the coverage could be in the low 90% range.¹ Within each sampled household, the adult with the next birthday is asked to participate. Other details of the ABS recruitment protocol have changed over time but are available upon request.²

We have recruited a national sample of U.S. adults to the ATP approximately once per year since 2014. In some years, the recruitment has included additional efforts (known as an “oversample”) to boost sample size with underrepresented groups. For example, Hispanic adults, Black adults and Asian adults were oversampled in 2019, 2022 and 2023, respectively.

Across the six address-based recruitments, a total of 23,862 adults were invited to join the ATP, of whom 20,917 agreed to join the panel and completed an initial profile survey. Of the 30,859 individuals who have ever joined the ATP, 11,936 remained active panelists and continued to receive survey invitations at the time this survey was conducted.

The American Trends Panel never uses breakout routers or chains that direct respondents to additional surveys.

Sample design

The overall target population for this survey was noninstitutionalized persons ages 18 and older living in the U.S., including Alaska and Hawaii who identify as Hispanic. All eligible members of the ATP and a random subsample of eligible members from Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel were invited to participate in this wave.

Questionnaire development and testing

The questionnaire was developed by Pew Research Center in consultation with Ipsos. The web program was rigorously tested on both PC and mobile devices by the Ipsos project management team and Pew Research Center researchers. The Ipsos project management team also populated test data that was analyzed in SPSS to ensure the logic and randomizations were working as intended before launching the survey.

Incentives

All ATP respondents were offered a post-paid incentive for their participation. ATP respondents could choose to receive the post-paid incentive in the form of a check or a gift code to Amazon.com or could choose to decline the incentive. Incentive amounts ranged from $5 to $20 depending on whether the respondent belongs to a part of the population that is harder or easier to reach. Differential incentive amounts were designed to increase panel survey participation among groups that traditionally have low survey response propensities.

Ipsos operates an ongoing modest incentive program for KnowledgePanel to encourage participation and create member loyalty. The incentive program includes special raffles and sweepstakes with both cash rewards and other prizes to be won. Typically, panel members are assigned no more than one survey per week. On average, panel members complete two to three surveys per month with durations of 10 to 15 minutes per survey. An additional incentive is usually provided for longer surveys. For this survey, during the last few days of data collection, KnowledgePanel members who self-identified as Black were offered 10,000 points (equivalent to $10) in addition to the regular incentive program in an attempt to boost the number of responses from panel members who identified as Black American.

Data collection protocol

The data collection field period for this survey was Nov. 6-19, 2023. Postcard notifications were mailed to all ATP panelists with a known residential address on Nov. 6.

Invitations were sent out in two separate launches: soft launch and full launch. Sixty ATP panelists and 409 KP panelists were included in the soft launch, which began with an initial invitation sent on Nov 6. The ATP panelists chosen for the initial soft launch were known responders who had completed previous ATP surveys within one day of receiving their invitation. All remaining English- and Spanish-speaking sampled panelists were included in the full launch and were sent an invitation on Nov. 7.

All panelists with an email address received an email invitation and up to four email reminders if they did not respond to the survey. All ATP panelists who consented to SMS messages received an SMS invitation and up to four SMS reminders.

Data quality checks

To ensure high-quality data, the Center’s researchers performed data quality checks to identify any respondents showing clear patterns of satisficing. This includes checking for whether respondents left questions blank at very high rates or always selected the first or last answer presented. As a result of this checking, six respondents were removed from the survey dataset prior to weighting and analysis. Another four respondents were removed from the survey dataset after providing feedback that they were not Hispanic, and therefore not eligible for the survey.

Weighting

The ATP data is weighted in a multistep process that accounts for multiple stages of sampling and nonresponse that occur at different points in the survey process. First, each panelist begins with a base weight that reflects their probability of selection for their initial recruitment survey. These weights are then rescaled and adjusted to account for changes in the design of ATP recruitment surveys from year to year. Finally, the weights are calibrated to align with the population benchmarks in the accompanying table to correct for nonresponse to recruitment surveys and panel attrition. If only a subsample of panelists was invited to participate in the wave, this weight is adjusted to account for any differential probabilities of selection.

Among the panelists who completed the survey, this weight is then calibrated again to align with the population benchmarks identified in the accompanying table and trimmed at the 1st and 99th percentiles to reduce the loss in precision stemming from variance in the weights. Sampling errors and tests of statistical significance take into account the effect of weighting.

The following table shows the unweighted sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the survey.

Sample sizes and sampling errors for other subgroups are available upon request. In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

Dispositions and response rates

How family income tiers are calculated

Family income data reported in this study is adjusted for household size and cost-of-living differences by geography. Panelists then are assigned to income tiers that are based on the median adjusted family income of all American Trends Panel members. The process uses the following steps:

1. First, panelists are assigned to the midpoint of the income range they selected in a family income question that was measured on either the most recent annual profile survey or, for newly recruited panelists, their recruitment survey. This provides an approximate income value that can be used in calculations for the adjustment.
2. Next, these income values are adjusted for the cost of living in the geographic area where the panelist lives. This is calculated using price indexes published by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. These indexes, known as Regional Price Parities (RPP), compare the prices of goods and services across all U.S. metropolitan statistical areas as well as non-metro areas with the national average prices for the same goods and services. The most recent available data at the time of the annual profile survey is from 2021. Those who fall outside of metropolitan statistical areas are assigned the overall RPP for their state’s non-metropolitan area.
3. Family incomes are further adjusted for the number of people in a household using the methodology from Pew Research Center’s previous work on the American middle class. This is done because a four-person household with an income of say, $50,000, faces a tighter budget constraint than a two-person household with the same income.
4. Panelists are then assigned an income tier. “Middle-income” adults are in families with adjusted family incomes that are between two-thirds and double the median adjusted family income for the full ATP at the time of the most recent annual profile survey. The median adjusted family income for the panel is roughly $71,800. Using this median income, the middle-income range is about $47,900 to $143,600. Lower-income families have adjusted incomes less than $47,900 and upper-income families have adjusted incomes greater than $143,600 (all figures expressed in 2022 dollars and scaled to a household size of three). If a panelist did not provide their income and/or their household size, they are assigned “no answer” in the income tier variable.

Two examples of how a given area’s cost-of-living adjustment was calculated are as follows: the Anniston-Oxford metropolitan area in Alabama is a relatively inexpensive area, with a price level that is 16.2% less than the national average. The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metropolitan area in California is one of the most expensive areas, with a price level that is 19.8% higher than the national average. Income in the sample is adjusted to make up for this difference. As a result, a family with an income of $41,900 in the Anniston-Oxford area is as well off financially as a family of the same size with an income of $59,900 in San Francisco. 

© Pew Research Center 2024