Comparing 2005-9 ACS 5 year with 2010-14 ACS 5 year

Hi Joe,

Unfortunately, I don't have any ideas, but your post brings up some questions that might spark ideas. My first thought is this: Would the population controls for 2009 and 2010 data be different in the 2009-2013 PUMS file? Or did they adjust them to make them the same? With the multitude of data items in that file, "Year" is notably missing (although it can be derived from serial number). I wonder if that could be missing in order to discourage time series analysis because of different population controls?

I understood (and I know very little about this) that the population estimates are created by forcing the samples to match known quantities, and are likely created based on criteria that is not available to us (which would seem to make it beyond our capacity to reliably tweak the data). If there's a way to legitimately alter the calculations based on what is available to us, I too would be interested in knowing what it is.

- John Grumbine

Hi Joe,

Unfortunately, I don't have any ideas, but your post brings up some questions that might spark ideas. My first thought is this: Would the population controls for 2009 and 2010 data be different in the 2009-2013 PUMS file? Or did they adjust them to make them the same? With the multitude of data items in that file, "Year" is notably missing (although it can be derived from serial number). I wonder if that could be missing in order to discourage time series analysis because of different population controls?

I understood (and I know very little about this) that the population estimates are created by forcing the samples to match known quantities, and are likely created based on criteria that is not available to us (which would seem to make it beyond our capacity to reliably tweak the data). If there's a way to legitimately alter the calculations based on what is available to us, I too would be interested in knowing what it is.

- John Grumbine