The data on poverty status of households were derived from answers to the income questions. Since poverty is defined at the family level and not the household level, the poverty status of the household is determined by the poverty status of the householder. Households are classified as poor when the total income of the householder's family is below the appropriate poverty threshold. (For nonfamily householders, their own income is compared with the appropriate threshold.) The income of people living in the household who are unrelated to the householder is not considered when determining the poverty status of a household, nor does their presence affect the family size in determining the appropriate threshold. The poverty thresholds vary depending on three criteria: size of family, number of related children, and, for 1- and 2-person families, age of householder. See the table "The 2009 Poverty Factors" in "Appendix A". (For more information, see "Poverty Status" and "Income" under "Population Variables.")

People may have chosen to provide two or more races either by checking two or more race response check boxes, by providing multiple responses, or by some combination of check boxes and write-in responses. The race response categories shown on the questionnaire are collapsed into the five minimum races identified by the OMB, and the Census Bureau's "Some other race" category. For data product purposes, "Two or More Races" refers to combinations of two or more of the following race categories:

1. White

2. Black or African American

3. American Indian and Alaska Native

4. Asian

5. Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander

6. Some other race

There are 57 possible combinations (see Appendix A) involving the race categories shown above. Thus, according to this approach, a response of "White" and "Asian" was tallied as two or more races, while a response of "Japanese" and "Chinese" was not because "Japanese" and "Chinese" are both Asian responses.

Given the many possible ways of displaying data on two or more races, data products will provide varying levels of detail. The most common presentation shows a single line indicating Two or more races. Some data products provide totals of all 57 possible race combinations, as well as subtotals of people reporting a specific number of races, such as people reporting two races, people reporting three races, and so on. In other presentations on race, data are shown for the total number of people who reported one of the six categories alone or in combination with one or more other race categories. For example, the category, "Asian alone or in combination with one or more other races" includes people who reported Asian alone and people who reported Asian in combination with White, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and/or Some other race. This number, therefore, represents the maximum number of people who reported as Asian in the question on race. When this data presentation is used, the individual race categories will add to more than the total population because people may be included in more than one category.