Race and ethnicity are significant predictors of plumbing incompleteness across the 117,716,237 households in the United States. Living in an American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN) household increases the odds of lacking complete plumbing 3.7 times nationally. Black households are 1.2 times more likely to lack complete plumbing than households not headed by someone who is black or indigenous and Hispanic households are 1.2 times more likely to lack complete plumbing than non-Hispanic households.
Across all households in the United States, accounting for income and housing type,
3.7
AIAN households are 3.7 times more likely to lack complete plumbing than households that do not identify as Indigenous or Black
1.2
Black households are 1.2 times more likely to lack complete plumbing than households that do not identify as Black or AIAN
1.2
Hispanic households are 1.2 times more likely to lack complete plumbing than non-Hispanic households
Many people assume that one of the major factors is housing type. In fact, one major myth is that most plumbing incomplete household are mobile homes. Our results suggested that it is a strong factor, although not the only one. Those living in mobile homes are 2.5 times more likely to lack plumbing than households living in non-mobile housing. More interestingly, renters are also more likely to lack complete plumbing. Those that rent are 1.4 times more likely to lack complete plumbing than those that own their home. This is alarming because renters have relatively little control over the conditions of their housing particularly in cases where it is all that they can afford.
Accounting for race/ethnicity and income,
2.5
Those living in mobile homes are 2.5 times more likely to lack complete plumbing than those that don’t live in mobile homes.
1.4
Renters are 1.4 times more likely to lack complete plumbing than non-renters
As you might expect, households with incomplete plumbing tend to be lower income. Accounting for race, housing type, and tenure, as household income goes up the odds of lacking complete plumbing go down.
The most striking of these national results are the trends based on race and ethnicity. Plumbing incompleteness is not randomly distributed across the population - rather, Indigenous, Black, and Hispanic households are more likely to lack complete plumbing than other households. This is true even across equal income brackets, and housing types.
This is America. These patterns suggest at the depth of inequality. Plumbing - both invisible and assumed to be universal - is more likely to be available to certain populations and race matters in predicting who lacks this infrastructure.