MANSFIELD — A lot can change in five years. Just ask the folks at the U.S. Census Bureau.
The federal agency released its 2020-2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates last month.
The Center for Community Solutions, an independent, nonpartisan research center, crunched the numbers to see how life changed — both statewide and at the county level — over those five years.
CCS found that across Ohio, incomes rose, housing got more expensive and more residents got access to broadband internet.
Those trends also bore out in Richland County, though some changes were more significant than others.
Here’s a breakdown.
Incomes and housing costs went up, poverty rate remained steady
Ohio saw its average median income rise by 25 percent, measuring at $69,768 in 2024.
Richland County’s median household income rose by 20 percent, but continued to lag behind the state at $59,509.
Meanwhile, census takers also found a gender wage gap in Richland County. Estimates show full-time male workers earn about $56,869 a year, while full-time female workers earn a median salary of $42,475.
Housing costs are on the rise, too. The median monthly mortgage payment in Richland County was estimated to be $1,218, up from $1,054 in 2019.
The statewide median mortgage payment grew by a larger percentage and sat at about $300 more per month than Richland County’s.
Rents shot up even more, both at the state and local level.
Richland County saw a 20.8-percent increase in median rent prices over a five-year period (from $682 to $824). The state median rent spiked 27 percent to $1,034 a month.
The Census Bureau estimates that between 2020 and 2024, almost 68 percent of Richland County households were in an owner-occupied home, compared to 32 percent of households that rented.
That puts Richland County roughly in line with Ohio’s overall estimated homeownership rate during the same time period.
Richland County’s poverty rate held relatively steady, ticking up three-tenths of a percent to 13.8 percent of the general population.
Meanwhile, almost one in five Richland County children live below the poverty line.
A small percentage of Richland County residents work from home full time
Statewide, Ohio saw its the percentage of its population under 18 drop slightly. Richland County bucked that trend, with its share of residents under 18 rising by a marginal one-tenth of a percent.
Nevertheless, children make up 21.8 percent of Richland County’s population in 2024, compared to 22.4 percent statewide.
Meanwhile, the county’s share of the population age 60 and older jumped from 25.9 percent to 27.2 percent, mirroring trends at the state level. Census data shows that approximately one in four Ohioans was over the age of 60 in 2024.
The share of Richland County residents between 16 and 64 who are employed full-time held relatively steady at 64.1 percent in 2024. The share of those individuals working full-time from home rose from 3.2 percent to 5.6 percent.
While a significant jump, Richland County’s full-time from-home workforce share still lags far behind the state average of 13 percent (which has nearly tripled since 2019).
At home broadband access increased by more than 10 percent
Although only a small share of local residents work from home, many more now have access to high-speed internet there. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, around 76.8 percent of Richland County residents had broadband access at home. By 2024, that figure had jumped to 87.9 percent.
Richalnd County Commissioner Tony Vero said those changes are largely due to investments of pandemic relief dollars.
“We’re certainly happy that more Richland County residents have the opportunity to acquire high-speed internet,” he said. “It’s satisfying to know that the dollars served the purpose for which they were intended to be used.”
According to Vero, commissioners set aside funds from both the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan Act for broadband expansion. Funds were used to help offset the cost of installing broadband infrastructure in more remote areas.
“The reason why there isn’t broadband, particularly in rural areas across the state, is the cost,” Vero explained. “It’s expensive to run fiber. If there’s only so many homes within a mile, (the broadband providers) are not going to get a (financial) return to run fiber to a certain location.”
In 2021, commissioners allocated $2 million of the county’s ARPA funds to improve high speed internet access to northern portions of Richland County.
Richland County also received a grant from BroadbandOhio in 2022.
Efforts to boost broadband in Richland County are still ongoing, Vero added.
How should residents interpret census data
Alex Dorman, a research fellow with CCS, said the five-year changes can offer interesting perspective on how different counties compare to each other or the state as a whole. It can help quantify what residents have observed about their own communities and sometimes, challenge misconceptions.
But he also cautioned that data has its limitations and can only tell part of the story.
“Everything needs to be interpreted in the context with which it sits, which there is a risk almost always in looking at a single data point and not bringing that context to what it’s saying,” he said.
While still a high quality source of information, Dorman added The American Community Survey is less rigorous than the U.S. Census Bureau’s decennial census. The ACS involves sampling the nation’s population, rather than attempting to gather information from each individual citizen.
That’s why CCS’s dashboard clarifies whether changes are statistically significant — meaning data scientists are confident the change actually occurred and wasn’t a result of chance or an error in data collection.
He also pointed out that the data is slightly dated. Although it is the most recent available, it reflects life in Ohio and Richland County between the years of 2020 and 2024.
County data can offer a broad overview, but Dorman said it’s important not to over-interpret countywide data, as experiences can vary from one town (or even one neighborhood) to the next.
“Anyone who lives in a county knows where the experiences vary so drastically, depending on where you live in that county, the access to resources that you have and what your family looks like,” he said. “People are so complex. These are just some of the best tools that we have to try to understand them.”
“The data is right. It’s not that it’s incorrect. It’s just that it’ll never tell a complete story,” he added. “I always hope that when we put stuff out there like this, it gets people’s wheels turning and it sparks some curiosity.”
To see CSS’ full breakdown of American Community Survey data, click here.