Hello!
I am working on a research project that involves collecting 28 variables from ACS data. I have been working with tidycensus and have figured out my R code to get me what I want in Rstudio, but I cannot find an extensive list of variable names to input in the get_acs(....variables=XYZ) function. When I use the load_variables function, I feel like I am either not getting the full list or the variable is too granular. For example, I need to know what percentage of people have a bachelor's degree or higher at the census tract level, but the ACS5 variables break it down too far (age, gender, etc.). I found a couple for my table, but not for all of the ones I need. I have looked to see if the online ACS data tables had it listed next to the variable description and couldn't find it.
My ask is: does anyone know the ACS variable names for these? and/or where I can find them on the census website? I'm looking for 2021 ACS 5-year estimate data.
Thanks very much!
-A stressed PhD student
Since you're using tidycensus you must be using R. If you're also using RStudio you can do something like:
ACSlist <- load_variables(2021, "acs5")
View(ACSlist)
which will display ALL the variables in API the very nice interactive DT powered table viewer built into RStudio. Can also search using dplyr etc as well. It's along list, but it's both sortable and searchable.