American Community Survey: Tools and links to data from the American Community Survey

The American Community Survey is a nationwide survey designed to replace the decennial long form in future censuses. Since the census is conducted only once every 10 years, long-form information becomes out of date. The American Community Survey is a way to provide this data every year instead of once in ten years. Data from the American Community Survey is similar to the data from the decennial census long form and includes demographic, housing, social, and economic information.
 

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• Accessing census data: a tutorial: How to use American Factfinder, American Community Survey, Datanet, and Allocate software, June 13, 2003. (14p., 175K, PDF 5.0) | Report details
• ACS statistical significance: Tool to calculate statistical significance for the American Community Survey from the District of Columbia Office of Planning, March 13, 2007. (Excel spreadsheet with macros) | Software details
• ACS statistical significance spreadsheet: Tool to calculate statistical significance for the American Community Survey designed by New York State Data Center, February 14, 2011. (Excel spreadsheet with macros) | Software details
• American Community Survey data now available for 2005: The American Community Survey for 2005 sampled 3,000,000 households nationwide and includes only household population data | Notice details
• American Community Survey homepage: information about the survey methodology, data products and using ACS data. Also includes links to download the Public Use Microdata (Link to offsite resources).
• American Community Survey Questionnaire: Sample of the form used to collect data for ACS (Link to offsite resources).
• American Community Survey vs. the Decennial Census Long Form, Are We Better Off Now Than We Were a Decade Ago?: An essay comparing data from the decennial census long form with the data from the American Community Survey from John Blodgett at the Missouri State Data Center (Link to offsite resources).
• American Community Survey: 2005 sample size for counties and county equivalents published: gives the sample size for all counties covered by the 2005 ACS (Link to offsite resources).
• American Community Survey: bonanza or booby trap: Presentation describes the American Community Survey's design and products and analyzes some of the data released in August 2006, September 25, 2006. (290.18K, .pdf) | Presentation details
• American Factfinder: Census Bureau's interactive online tool. (Link to offsite resources).
• Census 2000 ACS 2005 comparison issues: Table comparing the two data sets (Link to offsite resources).
• Income in the American Community Survey: comparisons to Census 2000: Staff from the Census Bureau explain the differences in income data between Census 2000 and ACS (Link to offsite resources).
• Introduction to the 2009 American Community Survey 5-year data release: Powerpoint presentation on the ACS's background, methodology and use, December 13, 2010. (2.28 M, .ppt) | Presentation details
• Minnesota Income in the 2005 American Community Survey: Household and family income; income by race and ethnicity; income by age; earnings differences by education and gender; median income in cities and counties with more than 65,000 population, October 12, 2006. (146.43K, .pdf) | Report details
• Ten things to know about the American Community Survey (2005 Edition): List of some of the more important potential problems that go with the data (Link to offsite resources).
• What recession? Social and economic indicators in the 2009 American Community Survey: Presentation from the November 18, 2010, Demography Brown Bag on data from the 2009 American Community Survey Data and how that data reflects the recession in Minnesota, November 23, 2010. (200.95K, .pdf) | Presentation details


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