TCBI — True Cost Basket Index. Five-domain weekly household basket cost (D1 Pump, D2 Pantry, D3 Plate, D4 Restaurant, D5 Composite + Income-share) across all 50 states, DC, and 3,142 US counties. Tract resolution (Census ACS5 2023) for 15 mega-counties covering ~17% of US population, plus 262 NYC Neighborhood Tabulation Areas across all 5 boroughs.
TSCI — True Shelter & Family Cost Index. Fixed monthly shelter nut (D1 Rent, D2 Mortgage, D3 Insurance HO/RE, D4 Childcare via DOL NDCP) across 3,222 US counties + Puerto Rico. County-level resolution. 21 BLS CPI metro outline overlay.
| Series | Identifier | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Census ACS5 2023 — Median Gross Rent | B25064_001E | TCBI tract_fc; TSCI D1 Rent |
| Census ACS5 2023 — Median Home Value | B25077_001E | TSCI D2 Mortgage baseline |
| Census ACS5 2023 — Owner Costs with Mortgage | B25088_001E | TSCI D2 monthly P+I+T+I |
| Census ACS5 2023 — Household Income | B19013_001E | Income-share, burden calcs |
| Census ACS5 2023 — Total Population | B01003_001E | Pop-weighted state/NTA aggregations |
| EIA Weekly Retail Gasoline | EMM_EPMR_PTE_* (PADD + state) | TCBI D1 Pump |
| BLS Average Price Data (regional) | APU0000FF1101 family | TCBI D2 Pantry · 4 Census regions |
| BLS APU Mediterranean basket | 10 LIVE + 7 SYNTH-ANCHOR | TCBI D3 Plate · weekly fam-of-4 |
| BLS CPI Food Away From Home | CUUR0000SEFV | TCBI D4 Restaurant · national base |
| USDA Thrifty Food Plan Sept 2024 | FNS reference table | TCBI D3 calibration anchor |
| DOL NDCP — Childcare Prices | Women's Bureau 2018 (inflation-adj) | TSCI D4 Childcare · all 50 states + PR |
| NAIC HO-3 / HO-4 | 2022 Annual Report tables | TSCI D3 Insurance · state-level premiums |
| us-atlas counties-10m.json + states-10m.json | npm us-atlas@3 | National/state choropleth geometry |
| loganpowell/census-geojson 2020 cb_500k | raw GitHub via jsdelivr | Tract polygons (TCBI mega-counties) |
| NYC DCP Neighborhood Tabulation Areas 2020 | NYC Open Data 9nt8-h7nd | 262 NYC NTA polygons |
| Census ZCTA→County Relationship File | tab20_zcta520_county20_natl | TSCI ZIP search (33,791 mapped) |
tract_value = state_baseline × tract_fc
where tract_fc = tract_median_rent / state_avg_median_rent,
clamped to [0.7, 1.5].
For D1 Pump (non-housing-correlated):
tract_fpump = 1 + 0.5 × (tract_fc − 1) (damped).
TCBI Composite (D5): 0.4 × pump + 0.6 × housing-correlated.
owner_nut = owner_cost + cc_m + ho_ins/12
owner_burden % = (owner_nut × 12) / median_HH_income
renter_burden % = (rent × 12) / median_HH_income
P/I = median_home_value / median_HH_income
TSCI Composite (ti): weighted aggregate, pop-weighted at state/national.
NTAs are not Census tabulation units. Tract-level ACS5 values aggregate up to NTA via point-in-polygon (tract centroid in NTA boundary), pop-weighted mean. Coverage: 2,293 of 2,324 NYC tracts mapped (98.7%). Suppressed tracts inherit county value.
| LIVE-EIA-STATE | direct EIA state-level series | LIVE-BLS-REGION | direct BLS regional APU value |
| LIVE-ACS-TRACT | direct Census ACS5 tract value | LIVE-DOL-NDCP | direct DOL childcare county value |
| LIVE-NAIC-STATE | direct NAIC HO-3/HO-4 state premium | PROXY-PADD/REGION | state inherits PADD or Census region value |
| PROXY-COUNTY-ADJ | county via rent ratio fc | PROXY-TRACT-ADJ | tract via tract rent ratio (clamped) |
| PROXY-STATE-FLAT | county inherits state value flat | TCBI-TRACT-DERIVED | composite at tract via weighted formula |
| COUNTY-LEVEL | no tract data exists (D4 inherits county) | DATA-SUPPRESSED | ACS small-N suppression — fall back |
| Source | This snapshot uses | Released | Next refresh |
|---|---|---|---|
| Census ACS5 (rent, income, home value, pop) | 2023 vintage | Dec 2024 | ACS5 2024 → Dec 2026 |
| EIA Weekly Retail Gas | 2026-05-11 | 2026-05-12 | weekly Mondays |
| BLS APU/CPI (Pantry, Plate, Restaurant) | 2026-M03 | 2026-04-15 | monthly mid-month |
| USDA Thrifty Food Plan | Sept 2024 | 2024-09 | quadrennial |
| DOL NDCP Childcare | 2018 base (inflated to 2023) | periodic | when DOL publishes |
| NAIC HO-3 / HO-4 | 2022 Annual Report | 2024-01 | annual |
| NYC DCP Neighborhood Tabulation Areas | 2020 vintage | 2020 | ~decennial |
Clamps. tract_fc ∈ [0.7, 1.5] produces visually-flat regions in very-low-rent (rural) or very-high-rent (Manhattan) areas. Intentional limit on baseline extrapolation; documented in audit workbook's Calibration_Audit sheet.
D4 Restaurant at tract level. BLS CPI Food Away From Home has no published tract-level series. Tract inherits county value flat. Flagged COUNTY-LEVEL.
TSCI suppressed slots. 8 states (AR, CT, IN, MO, NM, PA, VT) + Puerto Rico are proxy-derived for one or more DOL NDCP childcare slots. TSCI Insurance is NAIC state-only — no county detail exists in published data.
Curated place seeds. TCBI's place mid-tier uses 177 curated seed centroids (LA Beverly Hills, Cook Hyde Park, etc.) with Voronoi tessellation. Real TIGER PLACE polygons deferred to a future vintage.
Suppressed tracts. 72 of 2,498 LA County tracts (~3%) have suppressed ACS5 rent data due to small-N; they fall back to CA state composite with the DATA-SUPPRESSED flag.