← The Universe · Country fact sheet · No. 3Updated 29 Oct 2026 · 2024 survey weights

United States

616 locals speak for 267.2 million adults across the US.

Locals616People in situations, written from public sources, each at a real US place.

Adults they speak for267.2MEvery adult in the survey sample for the fifty states and DC, weighted: 267,241,508.

Have a close local98.0%A local whose situation fits theirs closely.

A typical local445,000adults spoken for (the median). Jacinto speaks for the most: 1,022,000.

Where America's locals live

about 38,000 to 1,022,000 adults

South Atlantic 124 locals · 20.7% of adultsPacific 95 locals · 15.9% of adultsEast North Central 83 locals · 14.0% of adultsMiddle Atlantic 75 locals · 12.7% of adultsWest South Central 73 locals · 12.2% of adultsMountain 46 locals · 7.7% of adultsWest North Central 40 locals · 6.4% of adultsEast South Central 40 locals · 5.8% of adultsNew England 40 locals · 4.7% of adults

Each dot is one local, at the town or neighbourhood in their story, sized by how many adults they speak for. The faces are the local who speaks for the most adults in each of the nine Census divisions. Alaska and Hawaii are drawn in the corner at their own scales; Canada and Mexico are drawn for context.

The groups they stand for

Share of adults

Every adult in the census falls in one of seven groups by life stage, and within it a type by how money feels and where they live. Each local wears the label of the people they speak for, with their ages and gender from the census. The labels describe who a local stands for; they never decide what a local thinks.

Students

In school or college full time, most still finding their feet. 17.3M adults, 34 locals.

Getting by, suburban1.3%
Squeezed, suburban0.9%
Getting by, city0.9%
Squeezed, city0.8%

Starting Out

11%

Under 35, working or looking, no kids yet. 29.6M adults, 69 locals.

Getting by, suburban2.2%
Comfortable, suburban1.4%
Getting by, city1.3%
Squeezed, suburban1.3%

Settled Singles and Couples

15%

Working age, no kids at home. 40.6M adults, 92 locals.

Comfortable, suburban2.5%
Getting by, suburban2.4%
Comfortable, city2.2%
Getting by, city1.7%

Young Families

10%

Parents with a child under six. 27.1M adults, 62 locals.

Getting by, suburban1.8%
Squeezed, suburban1.5%
Comfortable, suburban1.3%
Getting by, small-town and rural1.3%

School-Age Families

16%

Parents of school-age kids and teens at home. 43.8M adults, 104 locals.

Getting by, suburban2.9%
Comfortable, suburban2.8%
Getting by, small-town and rural2.1%
Squeezed, suburban1.9%

Empty Nesters

19%

Older working age, kids grown or never had them. 52.1M adults, 120 locals.

Comfortable, suburban3.9%
Getting by, suburban3.1%
Getting by, small-town and rural2.3%
Comfortable, small-town and rural2.1%

Retirees

21%

Out of the workforce, mostly 65 and over. 56.7M adults, 135 locals.

Squeezed, suburban3.6%
Getting by, suburban3.6%
Squeezed, small-town and rural3.1%
Getting by, small-town and rural2.8%

Where adults live

Share of adults · number of locals

AK0.2%1

ME0.4%5

WI1.8%9

VT0.2%2

NH0.4%5

WA2.4%14

ID0.6%3

MT0.3%1

ND0.2%1

MN1.7%10

IL3.7%23

MI3.0%18

NY5.9%37

MA2.2%15

OR1.3%7

NV1.0%6

WY0.2%1

SD0.3%2

IA0.9%6

IN2.0%11

OH3.5%22

PA3.9%22

NJ2.8%16

CT1.1%9

RI0.3%4

CA11.6%71

UT1.0%6

CO1.8%11

NE0.6%4

MO1.8%12

KY1.3%9

WV0.5%2

VA2.6%16

MD1.8%11

DE0.3%1

AZ2.2%14

NM0.6%4

KS0.9%5

AR0.9%5

TN2.1%15

NC3.3%20

SC1.6%9

DC0.2%1

OK1.2%6

LA1.3%7

MS0.8%6

AL1.5%10

GA3.2%20

HI0.4%2

TX8.8%55

FL7.1%44

Each local counts only for the people like them in the survey, so every share stays true to where adults really live. Every state and DC has at least one local.

Life stage

Share of adultsLocals in that stage

Student

6.5%34 locals

Starting out

11.1%69 locals

Young family

10.1%62 locals

School-age family

16.4%104 locals

Settled

15.2%92 locals

Empty nest

19.5%120 locals

Retired

21.2%135 locals

Life stage, not age, is how a local is matched to the survey.

How money feels

30%39%31%

Comfortable 30.4%Getting by 38.7%Squeezed 31.0%

From household income, adjusted for household size and cut into national tenths. Squeezed: the bottom three tenths, anyone below the poverty line, and anyone paying half their income or more for housing. Comfortable: the top three. The tenths are national, so they don't know that a dollar goes further in Mississippi than in San Francisco.

City, suburb or country

27%44%28%

City 27.3%Suburb 44.5%Small town or rural 28.3%

City: the dense core of a metro area, 5,000 or more people per square mile. Suburb: the rest of the metro core.

29.8%rent their home

2.3%new to the US (arrived 2020 to 2024)

Language at home

77%14%9%

English only 76.8%Spanish 13.7%Another language 9.5%

87locals live much of their day in Spanish

44.8%of adults who speak Spanish at home speak English less than very well

Who speaks for the most people

Adults spoken for

Jacinto Pico-Union, Los Angeles, CaliforniaSchool-Age Families · squeezed, city · A35-54 · mostly 35-54 · 57% womenSpeaks for 584k women and 437k men
Sells fruit cups, elotes and raspados from a cart outside an elementary school in Pico-Union while his wife cleans offices at night, and paying for the county health permit, the cart upgrade it required and California's gas prices for the van leaves little for rent on their one-bedroom with three kids.
1.0M
Dominic Ridgewood, Queens, New YorkSettled Singles and Couples · getting by, city · A35-54 · mostly 25-44 · 57% menSpeaks for 431k women and 573k men
An FDNY EMT on rotating tours who rents a railroad apartment in Ridgewood, Queens, and has started taking the late-night L train home with his back to the wall after a coworker was assaulted on a platform.
1.0M
Lacey Fleming Island, FloridaSettled Singles and Couples · comfortable, suburban · A35-54 · mostly 25-44 · about half womenSpeaks for 427k women and 530k men
A QA lead working remotely for a Jacksonville bank from her house in Fleming Island, who signed up for her first half-Ironman in Panama City Beach next spring and is spending real money on a bike, wetsuit and coaching app.
957k
Elias University of Arizona campus, Tucson, ArizonaStudents · getting by, city · A18-24 · mostly 18-24 · about half womenSpeaks for 473k women and 458k men
A University of Arizona hydrology junior who works as a resident assistant in a Tucson dorm because the job covers his room and meal plan, and he's watching the Colorado River cuts and new data center water deals the way other students watch football.
931k
Marianne Evanston, IllinoisEmpty Nesters · comfortable, suburban · A55+ · mostly 45-64 · about half womenSpeaks for 443k women and 466k men
A major-gifts fundraiser for a Chicago orchestra who lives a few blocks from Northwestern's rebuilt Ryan Field in Evanston, and with both kids out of the house she has joined the neighborhood group tracking the city's concert permits while her own job depends on donors staying generous.
909k

How well the locals cover the US

98%

Close match 98.0%Loose match 1.9%No local yet 0.0%

Every adult in the survey sample is matched to the nearest local.

News and leanings

All 616 locals together

44%9%47%

Leans right 43.8%Tuned out 8.9%Leans left 47.2%

Each local's news diet and how they lean are part of their situation, in their own words, and never a party label. The spread follows Pew Research Center's 2026 political typology, which puts 43.6% of US adults in groups that lean right, 8.9% tuned out and 47.5% leaning left.

60%of locals name local TV news

US adults who get news there (Pew)Locals who name it

Facebook

38%37%

Fox News

38%36%

YouTube

35%34%

CNN

33%30%

Instagram

20%19%

TikTok

20%18%

NPR

20%14%

The New York Times

19%17%

Data label and IAB segments

For media plans

The same label every debrief ends with, for the whole country: where the locals come from, how they are weighted, and who they stand for in the IAB Tech Lab Audience Taxonomy 1.1, the categories ad platforms and agencies buy audiences in. In the style of the IAB Tech Lab Data Transparency Standard, not a certified label.

Data label

Provider: Crowdsim, Ontario, Canada (hello@crowdsim.ca)
What it is: 616 AI locals, each standing for a share of real adults. Not a list of real or identifiable people.
Who they stand for: Adults 18 and over in the United States
Data source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey public use microdata, 2024
Method: Modelled from census microdata. No personal data, cookies, device IDs or customer lists.
Weighting: Each local counts by the census adults most like them; nobody counts more for saying more.
Coverage: 98.0% of 267,241,508 adults have a close local
Refresh: Census figures fixed to their release; the locals updated 29 Oct 2026
Taxonomy: IAB Tech Lab Audience Taxonomy 1.1
Expansion: None. Cross-device: not applicable.

The people they stand for, in IAB segments

Segment	IAB id	Share
Age
Age 18-24	3, 4	12%
Age 25-34	5, 6	17%
Age 35-44	7, 8	17%
Age 45-54	9, 10	15%
Age 55-64	11, 12	16%
Age 65+	13, 14, 15	23%
Gender
Female	49	51%
Male	50	49%
Life stage
Parents with Children	98	27%
Adults (no children)	96	26%
Retired	40	21%
Empty Nest (Adults, Children left home)	101	19%
Student + Adults (no children)	41, 96	6%
Home
Home Owners	138	67%
Renters	139	30%
Language
en	158 (en)	77%
es	158 (es)	14%

Shares of adults, from the census. An age band covers two or three IAB ranges because the census groups ages that way.