Chapter 5.2 · The deed and the ledger

Home value, income and redlining

Across census tracts, each counted once, life expectancy at birth for deaths in 2010 to 2015 is 2.2 years higher for each doubling of the median home value for 2019 to 2023.

Author: Vishal Singh
Affiliation: NYU Stern
Published: 9 October 2026
Updated: 28 October 2026

Take two census tracts where the median home value in one is double the value in the other. Across 76,702 tracts, each counted once, life expectancy at birth for deaths in 2010 to 2015 is 2.2 (95% CI 2.1 to 2.3) years higher for each doubling of the median home value. The slope describes places. It does not say that a household that moved to a costlier area would live longer.

Life expectancy rises with home value across census tracts

Each tract is paired with its own median home value, and institutional tracts such as prisons and nursing facilities are left out. Life expectancy moves more closely with the logarithm of the home value than with the home value in dollars, so the chapter states the slope per doubling. Ranking the tracts by home value and splitting them into twentieths with equal numbers of tracts gives a population-weighted mean of 73.5 years in the lowest twentieth and 82.8 years in the highest.

The price of a house adds up what buyers pay for each part of an address, such as bedrooms, schools and the commute, and economists call such a price hedonic.[1] Life expectancy is not a feature that a buyer can see or purchase, so the slope is not a price that anyone pays. It records that homes cost more where the people nearby live longer. The data do not separate what an area provides from who can afford to buy there.

Figure 1

Life expectancy is 2.2 years higher for each doubling of tract home value, and a year of life costs $33 thousand in housing dollars in Cincinnati and $658 thousand in San Jose

Life expectancy at birth (deaths in 2010 to 2015) against median home value (ACS 2019 to 2023) across census tracts, and the housing dollars per year of life in each large metro

Life expectancy is higher in tracts with higher home values, a correlation of +0.59 with the log of home value

Life expectancy at birth in years against median home value in dollars on a log scale, one dot per census tract (random sample), with population-weighted means for twentieths of tracts

Loading data

Dots drift up from left to right, and the markers for twentieths of tracts by home value rise at every step, from 73.5 years in the lowest twentieth to 82.8 years in the highest. The dashed line is fitted across all 76,702 tracts, each counted once, and has slope 2.2 years per doubling of home value.

Dots drift up from left to right, and the markers for twentieths of tracts by home value rise at every step. Each dot is one tract from a random sample, with home value on a log scale, and the dashed line is fitted across all tracts. The second tab gives the housing dollars per year of life in each metro of the comparison, with Cincinnati and San Jose in colour. Values in Table 1.

Note: The sample is 76,702 census tracts that have a life expectancy estimate and a median home value, with institutional tracts such as prisons and nursing facilities left out. Each tract carries its own ACS median home value, which the Census Bureau top-codes at about two million dollars. An earlier version of this figure used ZIP code areas and a ZIP-level home value of unstated, older vintage.Note: The dots are drawn at random from the tracts inside the plotted range with seed 12345. Every estimate in the chapter uses all tracts.Note: Twentieths hold equal numbers of tracts. Intervals on the markers resample whole counties; intervals in the second tab resample the tracts of one metro and treat them as independent, so they are narrower than they should be. Each tract takes the metro of its county, and a metro enters with at least 250 tracts and 1.5 million residents in the sample.Note: Life expectancy is the estimate for deaths in 2010 to 2015 and home values are for 2019 to 2023, so the two describe different years.Source: USALEEP life expectancy 2010-2015 (non-institutional tracts, area-weighted onto 2020 tracts) and ACS 2019-2023 tract median home value; population-weighted twentieths, unweighted fitted line, modeled estimates

How we know

Life expectancy is the USALEEP estimate for deaths in 2010 to 2015, and each tract's median home value is from the American Community Survey for 2019 to 2023, so the two describe different years. An earlier version of the chapter compared ZIP code areas and used a ZIP-level home value of unstated, older vintage. The life expectancy estimates are modeled for small areas and area-weighted from 2010 to 2020 tracts. Counting tracts in proportion to their population, the slope is 2.2 (95% CI 2.1 to 2.3) years per doubling. The report gives every estimate with its interval and sample size.

The housing price of a year follows local home prices

Within a metro, the slope can be turned into housing dollars. The chapter divides the median home value of a metro's tracts by the within-metro slope of life expectancy on the logarithm of home value. The result is the housing dollars that separate a pair of tracts one year of life apart near the metro median. Each tract counts in the metro of its county, and the comparison covers the 39 metros with at least 250 tracts and 1.5 million residents in the sample. Among them, a year costs $33 thousand (95% CI $30 thousand to $38 thousand) in Cincinnati, the lowest point estimate, and $658 thousand (95% CI $482 thousand to $947 thousand) in the San Jose metro, the highest (Figure 1, “Dollars per year of life”).

The exchange rate follows the price level more than the strength of the link, so a year is cheap where homes are cheap and dear where homes are dear. Part of that pattern is built in, because dollars per year is the median home value divided by the slope. The tracts of one metro resemble one another, and the interval for a single metro is narrower than the uncertainty. The chapter therefore reads the dollar figures as orders of magnitude.

Tracts graded A in the 1930s have higher life expectancy

Between 1935 and 1940 the Home Owners' Loan Corporation drew residential security maps for cities across the country. It graded neighborhoods from A, labeled best, to D, labeled hazardous.[2] The race and national origin of residents were among the factors in a grade, next to the housing stock and incomes.[3] The chapter overlays the graded areas on 2020 census tracts and keeps tracts where graded polygons cover at least 50% of the area. With tracts counted in proportion to their population, life expectancy for deaths in 2010 to 2015 averages 80.9 (95% CI 80.1 to 81.6) years in grade A tracts and 76.8 (95% CI 75.5 to 77.8) years in grade D tracts.

Grade A tracts are in cities whose graded tracts have a lower average life expectancy than the cities of grade D tracts. Comparing tracts within the same city, with a separate baseline for each city (fixed effects), widens the gap between the grades to 5.8 (95% CI 5.3 to 6.4) years. Adult income rank, homeownership and household income are also lower at each step from grade A to grade D. The income rank is from the Opportunity Atlas and describes children from low-income families born in 1978 to 1983.The Area Deprivation Index is close to the same value in grade B, C and D tracts while life expectancy falls from grade B to grade D. Several of the census measures behind the index are home values, rents and mortgage payments, so places with high housing costs read as less deprived (Chapter 1.1, What the deprivation index measures). These data do not test whether housing costs account for the flat pattern.

Figure 2

Tracts graded A on the 1930s HOLC maps have a life expectancy of 80.9 years, against 76.8 years in tracts graded D, for deaths in 2010 to 2015

Tract outcomes by 1930s HOLC grade: means of five measures, the spread of life expectancy, and the gap between grade A and grade D tracts city by city

Life expectancy, adult income rank, homeownership and household income are lower in each step from grade A to grade D

Population-weighted mean of tract values by HOLC grade, each panel in its own units

Life expectancy at birth (years)

Adult income rank of children from low-income families (percentile)

Homeownership rate (% of households)

Median household income (thousands of dollars)

Area Deprivation Index (national percentile, 100 = most deprived)

Mean of tract values (units in each panel title)

Life expectancy, adult income rank, homeownership and household income fall at each step from grade A to grade D, and the intervals for grades A and D do not overlap in any of those panels. The deprivation index is close to the same value for grades B, C and D, and the interval for grade A overlaps theirs.

Show data

Data for Tracts graded A on the 1930s HOLC maps have a life expectancy of 80.9 years, against 76.8 years in tracts graded D, for deaths in 2010 to 2015, Means by grade
conf_high	conf_low	grade	label	mean	n	outcome
81.57	80.13	A	Grade A	80.93	629	Life expectancy at birth (years)
79.81	78.30	B	Grade B	79.10	2,133	Life expectancy at birth (years)
78.74	76.88	C	Grade C	77.95	4,710	Life expectancy at birth (years)
77.79	75.50	D	Grade D	76.84	2,671	Life expectancy at birth (years)
47.15	45.26	A	Grade A	46.26	672	Adult income rank of children from low-income families (percentile)
44.14	41.99	B	Grade B	43.11	2,245	Adult income rank of children from low-income families (percentile)
42.56	39.57	C	Grade C	41.20	5,051	Adult income rank of children from low-income families (percentile)
39.15	36.27	D	Grade D	37.93	2,974	Adult income rank of children from low-income families (percentile)
70.58	64.96	A	Grade A	67.81	672	Homeownership rate (% of households)
56.70	48.44	B	Grade B	52.55	2,246	Homeownership rate (% of households)
47.75	39.33	C	Grade C	43.45	5,052	Homeownership rate (% of households)
39.73	31.66	D	Grade D	35.32	2,973	Homeownership rate (% of households)
138.4	114.9	A	Grade A	127.4	669	Median household income (thousands of dollars)
96.19	82.24	B	Grade B	89.54	2,236	Median household income (thousands of dollars)
78.97	68.80	C	Grade C	74.16	5,015	Median household income (thousands of dollars)
78.02	62.77	D	Grade D	71.12	2,920	Median household income (thousands of dollars)
38.43	25.53	A	Grade A	31.55	670	Area Deprivation Index (national percentile, 100 = most deprived)
49.21	33.19	B	Grade B	40.78	2,241	Area Deprivation Index (national percentile, 100 = most deprived)
52.72	33.35	C	Grade C	41.77	5,040	Area Deprivation Index (national percentile, 100 = most deprived)
52.98	31.56	D	Grade D	40.64	2,953	Area Deprivation Index (national percentile, 100 = most deprived)

Life expectancy, adult income rank, homeownership and household income fall at each step from grade A to grade D. The deprivation index is close to the same value for grades B, C and D. Dots are population-weighted means of tract values with 95% intervals from a bootstrap over counties. The second tab shows the spread of tract life expectancy in each grade, and the third the grade A and grade D means city by city. Values in Table 3.

Note: A tract enters when graded polygons (A to D) cover at least 50% of its area and takes the grade that covers the most of it. The comparison is descriptive: the grades followed the neighborhoods' housing, incomes and the race and national origin of residents, so differences today do not isolate the effect of the maps.Note: The tracts are in 222 HOLC cities and city areas, matched by overlay. With a stricter rule that graded polygons cover at least 90% of a tract the life-expectancy gap between grades A and D is 3.6 years.Note: Life expectancy is USALEEP for deaths in 2010 to 2015, area-weighted onto 2020 tracts, with institutional tracts left out. The adult income rank is the Opportunity Atlas rank of children born 1978 to 1983 to parents at the 25th income percentile, interpolated from 2010 to 2020 tracts by area. Tract values are weighted by ACS 2019-2023 population.Source: Mapping Inequality HOLC maps (1935-1940) overlaid on 2020 tracts; USALEEP 2010-2015, Opportunity Atlas (1978-1983 birth cohorts), ACS 2019-2023 and ADI 2023; population-weighted, modeled estimates

The grades shift the middle of the distribution and do not sort tracts into separate groups. In random pairs of one grade A tract and one grade D tract, drawn in proportion to population, the grade A tract has the higher life expectancy in 75% of pairs. In the remaining pairs the grade D tract does. The interquartile ranges of grades A and D overlap (Figure 2, “Spread of life expectancy”).

These comparisons describe neighborhoods today, and the grades followed housing, incomes and populations that already differed before the maps were drawn. A study of grade borders by Aaronson, Hartley and Mazumder finds that the maps reduced homeownership rates, house values and rents and increased racial segregation in later decades.[3] That study does not cover life expectancy or children's incomes, and its border estimates are local to areas beside a border.

Tax returns change shape with county deprivation

Whether a household can buy where homes are dear depends on its income. The income tax returns filed in a county describe the incomes of everyone who files there, and they do not identify who bought a home. The chapter ranks counties on the Area Deprivation Index and splits them into tenths that hold equal numbers of counties, not equal numbers of people. For tax year 2022, the share of returns that claim the earned income tax credit rises from 12.0% (95% CI 10.4% to 13.2%) in the least deprived tenth to 28.9% (95% CI 26.4% to 31.2%) in the most deprived. The share of returns with an adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more falls from 11.1% (95% CI 10.3% to 11.9%) to 1.9% (95% CI 1.7% to 2.1%). The index is built partly from income and poverty, so some of this gradient is built in.

Figure 3

The share of tax returns that claim the EITC rises from 12.0% to 28.9% across tenths of counties by deprivation, while the share with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more falls from 11.1% to 1.9%

Shares of individual income tax returns by tenth of counties on the Area Deprivation Index, and the distribution of returns across five income groups by fifth of counties, tax year 2022

Across tenths of counties, the EITC share rises with deprivation and the top-bracket share falls

Percent of individual income tax returns, county-population-weighted mean, tax year 2022, by tenth of counties on the Area Deprivation Index (1 = least deprived)

The EITC line rises at nearly every step and the top-bracket line falls at every step; the two lines start at nearly the same level in the least deprived tenth and end far apart in the most deprived. Bands are 95% intervals from a bootstrap over states.

Show data

Data for The share of tax returns that claim the EITC rises from 12.0% to 28.9% across tenths of counties by deprivation, while the share with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more falls from 11.1% to 1.9%, By deprivation tenth
conf_high	conf_low	counties	decile	series	share
13.19	10.39	312	1	Returns claiming the EITC	12.03
16.07	12.76	313	2	Returns claiming the EITC	14.75
17.66	14.05	313	3	Returns claiming the EITC	15.93
18.40	15.68	313	4	Returns claiming the EITC	17.01
20.10	16.71	313	5	Returns claiming the EITC	18.34
22.56	17.61	313	6	Returns claiming the EITC	20.18
21.23	17.57	313	7	Returns claiming the EITC	19.32
26.24	18.63	315	8	Returns claiming the EITC	22.40
26.09	21.03	312	9	Returns claiming the EITC	23.69
31.16	26.41	312	10	Returns claiming the EITC	28.93
11.87	10.34	312	1	Returns with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more	11.06
8.08	6.73	313	2	Returns with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more	7.46
6.31	5.30	313	3	Returns with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more	5.91
5.24	4.55	313	4	Returns with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more	4.88
4.38	3.66	313	5	Returns with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more	4.06
3.69	3.20	313	6	Returns with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more	3.43
3.20	2.80	313	7	Returns with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more	3
2.94	2.50	315	8	Returns with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more	2.69
2.64	2.24	312	9	Returns with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more	2.43
2.13	1.73	312	10	Returns with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more	1.92

The EITC line rises at nearly every step and the top-bracket line falls at every step across tenths of counties. Each line is the population-weighted mean of county shares of individual returns for tax year 2022, with 95% intervals from a bootstrap over states. The second tab pools the returns of each fifth of counties and splits them into five income groups. Values in Table 2.

Note: Tenths and fifths hold equal numbers of counties, not equal numbers of people, so the most deprived tenth holds far fewer returns than the least deprived. The Area Deprivation Index is built from income, poverty, education and housing measures, so a gradient of income-based shares against it is partly built in.Note: The IRS file covers people who file a return. The EITC share is the share of returns that claim the credit, which depends on eligibility and on filing, and the top-bracket share is the share of returns with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more. Both are counts of returns with no sampling error; the intervals in the first tab come from differences between states.Note: 14.9% of all returns claim the EITC and 7.8% are in the top bracket. Counties with no Area Deprivation Index are left out; Puerto Rico is not in the file.Source: IRS Statistics of Income county file, tax year 2022, and Area Deprivation Index 2023; population-weighted county means, full counts of returns

What the comparisons describe, and what they do not

The records compare census tracts for home values and for the grades and counties for tax returns. Across tracts, life expectancy rises with home value. Across graded tracts, it is higher where the 1930s grade was A than where it was D. Across counties, the share of returns that claim the credit rises with deprivation and the share in the top bracket falls, a gradient partly built into the index. None of these patterns says that a household that moved into a costlier tract, or into a tract once graded A, would live longer.

What this cannot tell you

A county or a tract is not a person, and a pattern across places need not hold for the people inside them (ecological inference). The residents of a tract differ from movers in income, health and age, and the data cannot separate selection from what an area provides. The IRS shares are shares of returns and leave out people who do not file. The maps cover the cities that HOLC surveyed, so a city that is absent was not surveyed, which does not mean it had no redlining.

Go deeper

The report: every estimate with its interval and sample size.
Tables: every figure of the report as a table.

Reading paths that include this chapter:

Money and the institutions that follow the map

Data sources

USALEEP life expectancyLife expectancy at birth by tract, deaths in 2010 to 2015, area-weighted onto 2020 tractsYears: 2010-2015 · Weights: ACS 2019-2023 tract population; each tract once for the unweighted slope · License: Public domain (NCHS, CDC)
American Community SurveyACS 2019 to 2023: median home value by tract, tract population, homeownership, household income and renter householdsYears: 2019-2023 (5-year) · Weights: 2019-2023 tract population · License: Public domain (U.S. Census Bureau)
Census TIGER/Line tractsCensus 2020 county file: the core-based statistical area code of each county (CBSAFP), which assigns tracts to metrosYears: 2020 · Weights: none (assignment of counties to metros) · License: Public domain (U.S. Census Bureau)
IRS Statistics of IncomeIRS Statistics of Income county file, tax year 2022: returns, returns claiming the earned income tax credit and returns by adjusted gross income bracketYears: tax year 2022 · Weights: none (full counts of returns) · License: Public domain (IRS Statistics of Income)
Area Deprivation IndexArea Deprivation Index 2023, national rank, tracts averaged to countiesYears: 2023 release (version 4.0.1; built on ACS 2019-2023) · Weights: ACS 2019-2023 tract population · License: Free for non-commercial use; cite the Neighborhood Atlas and Kind and Buckingham
Opportunity AtlasAdult household income rank of children born 1978 to 1983 to parents at the 25th income percentile, county and 2020-tract filesYears: 1978-1983 birth cohorts (2018 release) · Weights: county population; tract population · License: Public use (Opportunity Insights and the U.S. Census Bureau)
Mapping Inequality (HOLC maps)Mapping Inequality HOLC residential security maps, 1935 to 1940, graded polygons overlaid on 2020 tractsYears: 1930s-1940s maps (2023 digitization) · Weights: ACS 2019-2023 tract population · License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (cite Nelson and coauthors)

All data sources

References

Rosen, Sherwin (1974). Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition. Journal of Political Economy 82(1): 34-55. doi:10.1086/260169
Nelson, Robert K.; Winling, LaDale; Marciano, Richard; Connolly, Nathan; et al. (2023). Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America. American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, Digital Scholarship Lab, University of Richmond. dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/
Aaronson, Daniel; Hartley, Daniel; Mazumder, Bhashkar (2021). The Effects of the 1930s HOLC "Redlining" Maps. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 13(4): 355-392. doi:10.1257/pol.20190414

How to cite

@misc{singh2026homevalueincomeandredlining,
  author = {Singh, Vishal},
  title = {Home value, income and redlining},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://vishalsingh.org/zipcode/home-value-income-and-redlining},
  note = {In ZIP Code Destiny. Published 9 October 2026; updated 28 October 2026.}
}