Latest census data paints a picture of Cook County

Deconstructing the latest census every 10 years is always interesting. Especially if a state is worried about re-apportionment of congressional power and census-driven grants and other funding. But it’s the American Community Survey 5-Year Estimate that’s likely to tell us the most about ourselves.

The Census Bureau has released its 2005-2009 data profile of Cook County. We have a few more people since the last census, but otherwise not much has changed.

There are 5,411 of us living in the county, 4,303 are over 25 and there are slightly more women than men. Our average family size is 2.44 members. Eighty-two and a half percent of us are over 18 and a little more than 18 percent of us are over 65 that results in a median age of 48.6 years.

A little more than 67 percent of Cook County men are married compared with about 61 percent of the women. Some 92 percent of us have a high school diploma or more. Over 27 percent of us have a Bachelor’s degree or more.

Sixty-six percent of us who are 18 or older have jobs and we travel an average of 14-1/2 miles to get there where we earn $27,962 in individual inflation adjusted income. Our median family income is $53,663 – also adjusted for inflation. But 5.4 percent of our families live below the poverty level, as do 9.5 individuals.

Cook County homes occupied by their owners exceed 2,000 and the median value is $233,300. We are overwhelmingly white (88.6%) and 6.2 percent of us are Native American. Our veteran population is over 780 and 280 of us speak a language other than English when we’re home.