Planning
American Community Survey:
New Data Source to Profile Communities
U.S. Census Bureau
Effective Practice:
New data resource to prepare more accurate, timely
and comprehensive profile of America's communities.
Participants:
The American Community Survey will be valuable
to transportation and other government agencies, nongovernmental organizations,
market researchers, academic institutions, students, and the public.
Description
The American Community Survey (ACS) will give
an up-to-date statistical picture for planning and evaluating public programs
every year, not just once in ten years. Communities will be able to track
changes in the well-being of children, families, and the elderly; determine
the social impacts of transportation investments; evaluate programs such
as welfare and workforce diversification; and monitor the effects of programs
and plans that assist low-income and minority populations.
The decennial census has two parts: 1) it counts
the population; and 2) for the administration of federal programs and the
distribution of billions of federal dollars, it obtains demographic, housing,
social, and economic information by asking a 1-in-6 sample of households
to fill out a ělong form. Since this is done only once every 10 years,
long-form information becomes out of date. Planners and other data users
are reluctant to rely on it for decisions that are expensive and affect
the quality of life of thousands of people. The ACS is a way to provide
the data communities require every year instead of once in ten years.
The ACS is being evaluated and tested by the Census
Bureau for select areas. Plans are to implement the ACS in every county
of the United States with an annual sample of three million housing units.
When fully operational in 2004, the ACS will provide estimates of demographic,
journey-to-work, housing, social, and economic characteristics every year
for all states, as well as for all cities, counties, metropolitan areas,
and population groups of 65,000 people or more. For small areas and population
groups of 20,000 or less, it will take five years to accumulate a large
enough sample to provide estimates with accuracy similar to the decennial
census. That means updated information for areas such as neighborhoods
will be available starting in 2008 and every year thereafter.
The ACS will report summary data for population
and housing estimates, cross tabulated by various characteristics, down
to the block-group level. The summary data will be similar to the Summary
Tape Files (STF) of the 1990 decennial census records, and are designed
to provide statistics with greater subject and geographic detail than possible
with printed reports.
The ACS will release a microdata file each year
patterned after the five percent Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) file
of the 1990 decennial census records. The microdata file allows for two
different units of analysis: housing unit and person. The microdata file
includes as many records as possible and shows the lowest level of geography
possible within confidentiality constraints. Users of the ACS data can
customize tabulations to examine the information in the way that best serves
their needs. The ACS will provide more timely data for making estimates
of various concepts for small geographic areas. In essence, detailed data
from national household surveys (whose samples are too small to provide
reliable estimates for states or localities) can be combined with data
from the ACS to create reliable estimates for small geographic areas.
Benefits
For the Agencies:
- Collect accurate, timely data about the location
of low-income and minority populations as well as detailed information
about place-of-work, means of transportation, private vehicle occupancy,
time leaving for work, and travel time to work. The data will enable monitoring
of changes in travel patterns for evaluating programs, plans and projects.
Data users will find available other timely demographic, housing, social,
and economic data that can be compared across states, communities, and
population groups including by race, ethnicity and income.
For the Community:
- Communities can use the data, to track the well-being
of their children, families, and the elderly; determine where to site new
transportation systems and other facilities; and evaluate transportation
investments for their ability to meet local needs as well as to assess
potential impacts.
Contacts/Resources
More information about the ACS at:
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/
The American Community Survey is NOT a head count.
We will still do the decennial census short form to count the population
and will continue to work between censuses with states to get the yearly
estimates of the population of states and counties. Because it does not
count the population, the American Community Survey is NOT a means of apportioning
Congressional seats. It is designed to get social, economic, and housing
information every year to show trends and changes at the community level...
....We are using the word "community" in the broad
sense. It refers to population subgroups as well as to geographic units
like cities, states, or counties. In the past, population subgroups only
received information once in 10 years; those groups tend to be too small
to show any information in the national surveys which are conducted between
decennial censuses. Now, we will have information every year about groups
such as the oldest old (those 85 and older); teenage mothers in school
and those who are working; college graduates; or specific race and ethnic
groups such as Vietnamese, Mexican-Americans, and American Indian tribes.
from slideshow posted on the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey website.
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