Available here
The distributions. Every percentile table behind every chart in the benchmark, as CSV and JSON. National, by size category, by region, by state, by rate structure and by type of owner. Cohorts under thirty systems are not published, which is the rule this site already keeps for a state median.
Every distribution covers the whole record; the sample governs only which systems are named. Revenue per connection reaches about fourteen thousand systems, against the 985 named.
Two are Californian. The residential bill and the affordability ratio cover about eleven hundred systems, all in California, which is the one state publishing residential tariffs centrally. Every other distribution is national. The counts here are round on purpose: the study’s table carries the exact n, and a figure typed into a sentence ages.
Use, quote, redistribute and build on them. Attribution is appreciated and is the only thing asked.
The method. How the benchmark is built covers how the figures are checked, why one is sometimes blank, and what they were checked against.
The systems that are named. Every system serving over 100,000 people, and a stratified random sample of the rest, appear on this site with their figures and with the reason for each of their blanks.
Not served here
The full file: a row per community water system, with every published field and the reason behind every withheld figure.
There is no URL for it, and no form. Write and ask: ammar@municorn.us. No paywall, no rate limit, and anyone who asks gets it. We ask because the per-system rows are usually an input to a specific piece of work, and we would like to know what that work is.
Limitations
A number here describes a filing, not a utility. Filings are consistent across thousands of systems, which is what makes them comparable, and they are not an audit. Two specifics to carry into anything you quote:
- Water utility revenue and spending come from a government’s own statutory return, and roughly a quarter of those amounts are the collecting agency’s estimate rather than the government’s own report. Every figure carries that distinction.
- Household income for a system that is not a municipality is a population-weighted mean of small-area medians, which is not a median. It is labelled as derived everywhere it appears.
Citing it
Municorn.us, The 2026 American Water Rate and Finance Benchmark. https://municorn.us/benchmark/
A versioned deposit of the aggregate layer with a DOI is in preparation, and this page will carry it once it exists.