---
title: "Appendix"
description: "Categorization of COVID-19 state health impact in this report This report uses a measure of state-level impact of COVID-19. States and the District of Columbia are categorized as having experienced a high, medium or low impact based on a combination of the total number and the per-capita number of people who have tested positive for […]"
date: "2020-03-26"
authors:
  - name: "Sara Atske"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/03/26/coronavirus-impact-appendix/"
---

# Appendix

### Categorization of COVID-19 state health impact in this report

[![Categorization of COVID-19 state impact](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/03/PP_2020.03.26_coronavirus-impact_A-01.2.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/03/26/coronavirus-impact-appendix/pp_2020-03-26_coronavirus-impact_a-01-2/)

This report uses a measure of state-level impact of COVID-19. States and the District of Columbia are categorized as having experienced a high, medium or low impact based on a combination of the total number and the per-capita number of people who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus (as of March 22).

States were classified as “high” if they had *either* 1,000 or more total cases or they had more than 100 cases per million residents as of March 22. “Low” states had both fewer than 60 cases per million residents *and* less than 300 cases overall. The remaining states were classified as “medium” impact.

Data for positive cases of COVID-19 by state were taken from The COVID Tracking Project (downloaded on March 23).

### Defining income tiers

To create upper-, middle- and lower-income tiers, respondents’ 2018 family incomes were adjusted for differences in purchasing power by geographic region and for household size. “Middle-income” adults live in families with annual incomes that are two-thirds to double the median family income in our sample (after incomes have been adjusted for the local cost of living and for household size). The middle-income range for this analysis is about $40,100 to $120,400 annually for a three-person household. Lower-income families have incomes less than roughly $40,100, and upper-income families have incomes greater than roughly $120,400.

Based on these adjustments, among respondents who provided their income, 33% are lower income, 45% are middle income and 22% fall into the upper-income tier.

For more information about how the income tiers were determined, please see [here](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/methodology-27/).