The U.S. Census Bureau, with support from other Federal agencies, created the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program to provide more current estimates of selected income and poverty statistics than those from the most recent decennial census.

Estimates are created for states, counties, and school districts. The main objective of this program is to provide updated estimates of income and poverty statistics for the administration of federal programs and the allocation of federal funds to local jurisdictions. Beginning with the estimates for 2005, data from the American Community Survey are used in the estimation procedure; all prior year estimates used data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplements of the Current Population Survey.