The American Community Survey is a new and invaluable
tool for policymakers, business leaders, community advocates, and
researchers. The ACS provides a wealth of data about Washingtonian households:
- Housing, including property value and utility costs.
- Demographics, including age, race, sex, immigration status, family relationships, and school enrollment.
- Economic, including income from various sources and poverty status.
- Employment, including unemployment, length of commute, and occupation.
For
decades, the Census Bureau has conducted two massive surveys every ten
years: the Constitution-required count of all people which also
collected demographic data (known as the short form) and a survey of
one-in-six households that collected more detailed information (known
as the long form). The long form collected valuable data, but it had a large drawback: the data is only collected every ten
years.
The Census Bureau has responded to demands for more frequent
demographic and economic data by replacing the long-form census with
the American Community Survey, an annual survey with a large enough
sample size (three million households) to report statistics for
geographies with populations greater than 65,000. (Smaller areas will
be able to pool years of data in the future.)
The ACS was first fully implemented in 2005 and the first data from the
full survey (as opposed to earlier, smaller versions) is being released
in August through October 2006.
As valuable as the ACS is, there are some important cautions that should be understand before using the data.
Return to main ACS/CPS-ASEC page.
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