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The American Community Survey
The American Community Survey (ACS) is a new approach to producing critical information about the characteristics of local communities. It will eliminate the need for a long form in the 2010 Census and is a key part of the Census Bureau’s Decennial Census Program. The ACS publishes social, housing, and economic characteristics for demographic groups covering a broad spectrum of geographic areas in the United States and Puerto Rico. Every year the ACS can support the release of single-year estimates for geographic areas with populations of 65,000 or more. The ACS also accumulate sample over 3-year and 5-year intervals to produce estimates for smaller geographic areas including census tracts and block groups. Census bureau has released single year ACS since 2006 summer for areas with populations greater than 65,000. Beginning in December 2008, the Census Bureau releases 3-year averages estimates for areas with populations greater than 20,000. Starting 2010, five-year averages will be produced for all geographic areas, regardless of population size. The ACS has two major type of files as well, ACS-Summary Files (ACS-SF) & ACS-Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). The ACS is to provide a set of summary files (i.e., a separate ACS-SF) for estimates from each time period the ACS will cover 1-Year, 3-Year, and 5-Year. The supported geography for each time period ACS-SF is depended on the each time period ACS’s geographical coverage. For the PUMS or ACS microdata, they are available in 1-Year & 3-Year estimate versions. However, the smallest geographic unit that is identified is still the Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA).
American Community Survey Home Page at the Census Bureau is the official site. ACS data can be accessed via the Census Bureau's American FactFinder web application.
CSSCR will provide Washington State ACS data files in SAS and SPSS format and related materials on our website. Each data collection will be provided in its own group as they become available. National data and other states can be acquired by request, please contact the data archivist at txtian@u.washington.edu.
To access the ACS data in different year estimates, please click the buttons on the left.
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