Homes Without One

What the definition is

The American Community Survey counts a housing unit as having complete plumbing facilities when it has hot and cold piped water, a flush toilet, and a bathtub or shower. Missing any one of the three puts the unit in the "lacking" column.

So the measure is not only about bathing. But a bathtub or shower is one of its three conditions, which is why it belongs on this site.

The number

That is about 1.05% overall, and it varies by more than tenfold between states — from 0.39% to 3.98% across the areas we cover.

Why the state pages say "the towns we cover"

Because our coverage is uneven between states, and the per-state universes differ by a factor of fifty. New Mexico’s figure rests on 31,305 housing units and Indiana’s on 775,966.

A percentage over a small universe is not a statement about a state, so we do not make one. Every state page is worded accordingly.

What it is not evidence of

It counts housing units, including vacant ones — a different universe from the household counts used elsewhere in the survey, and vacant units are likelier to lack facilities than lived-in ones. It also cannot tell you why: a unit mid-renovation and a unit that never had a bathroom both land in the same column.