2025 ACS CONFERENCE RECORDINGS AND PRESENTATIONS ARE NOW AVAILABLE ON THE CONFERENCES PAGE.

  • Error margins for 5-year ACS estimates

    Hello:

    I work for a news organization that wants to write about some of the 5-year ACS demographics, especially poverty and income, for local towns in our area. There are 340 municipalities that we cover. If we look at the main estimates for 2013-17, and…

  • Recent Census Bureau Guidance on Calculating Standard Errors for Derived Estimates

    If you've been using the guidance and formulas in Appendix 3 of the ACS Compass Handbooks to calculate Margins of Error for ACS estimates that you have derived, then you might want to review the updated guidance and formulas that the Census Bureau provided…

  • Calculating Standard Error of A Median in SAS

    Working with 2016 ACS PUMS data. Can anyone share how to get the standard error for a median using SAS? For example, if one was looking for the median of gross rent, it's easy enough to multiply grntp by adjhsg and find the median, but how do you calculate…

  • Calculating Less than 2.00X FPL

    We frequently find ourselves calculating a statistic like "the population (with a margin of error) earning less than 2.00X the FPL". These fields are found in the C17002 (C17002_001 to C17 C17002_008) family of tables. (data.census.gov/table

    …

  • Calculating Standard Error of Median Income in PUMS using R

    Hello,

     

    I would like to use R to calculate the standard error of the median income of a population represented in PUMS. I would like to do this using replicate weights, if possible.

     

    I know how to calculate the standard error of an estimate using replicate…

  • 2013 PUMS error and re-release of data

    Users should note that there was an error in the original 2013 1-year and 3-year ACS PUMS files affecting the "MV" variable (when the householder moved into this house or apartment).

    The files are being re-released.
    Users should replace any…

  • RE: Regarding Rexburg, the 2023 ACS 5-Year Estimates retain the same errors from 2022.

    They're estimates with ~10% margins of error.

  • Creating Tables for the Unincorporated Area in a County

    I have an interesting question about generating ACS tables for a county's unincorporated area. Counties in Colorado have to produce housing tables (such as B25032, Housing tenure by units in structure) for these areas. 

    In my mind, the most straightforward…

  • Comparing Income categories from Table B19001

    Hi,

    I have been asked to compare three iterations of Table B19001 (Household Income in the last 12 months), using the 2009-2013, 2014-2018, and 2019-2023 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year data files. 

    The project requires reporting the weighted number…

  • RE: What's the smallest geographic slice to browse ACS data?

    Hi Diana,

    thanks for your notes here! Would be curious to read your blog post :)

    Aggregating by geography makes sense.

    Regarding aggregating by rows/categories, you said

    > For example, with the age and sex breakdowns in your screenshot, could you live…

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