# Aiken Housing & Pay: provenance and method

Independent portfolio demonstration using public sources. No company, customer, or confidential information.

## Rent

Zillow Research, Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes, county, smoothed. Aiken County, South Carolina: FIPS 45003, RegionID 365.

- [Public CSV](https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zori/County_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv)
- [Source and downloads](https://www.zillow.com/research/data/)
- [Methodology](https://www.zillow.com/research/methodology-zori-repeat-rent/)

`rents.json` contains the nonblank observations for the matching county, with download timestamp and full-source SHA-256. Blank months are omitted, never converted to zero. The index is a smoothed market-rent measure, not a quote for an available apartment. Historical estimates can be revised. Values are nominal dollars. This is not a rent forecast.

The Refresh rent data button calls `/api/housing`. The server fetches only the fixed URL above, with a 12-second timeout, an 8 MB limit, and no redirects. It validates geography, uniqueness, date order, future dates, record count, and positive finite dollar values. A successful response may contain unchanged data. The browser rejects older end dates and retains its current observations if the source, network, or validation fails. No scheduled polling, AI calls, or user-provided upstream URLs. A reload starts from the bundled snapshot; successful refreshes are retained only for the current page session.

## Wages

[BLS OEWS regional release, Table A](https://www.bls.gov/regions/southeast/news-release/occupationalemploymentandwages_augusta.htm), published July 7, 2026; observations **May 2025**. `wages.json` records selected major occupational groups and their **mean hourly wages** for the **Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC metropolitan area**. Labels shorten some group names. This is a manually verified benchmark, not refreshed by the rent button. It is not Aiken-only pay, a median, a starting salary, or a specific job offer. Recheck the release before updating the benchmark.

## Calculation

Monthly gross income = hourly pay × paid hours per week × 52 ÷ 12.
Housing share = (monthly rent + additional utilities) ÷ monthly gross income × 100.

The comparison defaults to one earner, 40 paid hours every week, and no additional utilities. Utilities are an explicit scenario input; avoid counting costs already included in rent twice. The 30% line is a chosen comparison reference, not a complete household affordability assessment. Taxes, benefits, debt, transport, household size, unpaid weeks, and other costs are excluded. Comparing different periods and geographies is illustrative; it does not measure actual household cost burden or its prevalence. All visitor scenario inputs remain in the browser.