American Community Survey

General Overview

The ACS is by far one of the most widely used data sets to explore well-being in the United States.  This is partially because of its ease to locate, download, and use.  For novice social work researchers this is a must-use data set that can be used to track employment, well-being, basic health, community, family, and neighborhood factors. Although somewhat limiting in the depth of analyses that it allows, as it is not ideal for longitudinal analyses, this data set is useful for nearly any social worker who is writing a grant or exploring needs in their local community. 

Warnings

Over the years the ACS occasionally changes the variables it chooses to track which can make it difficult to follow trends for certian types of social issues across the years. Also, the ACS has recently decided to drop providing 3-year data estimates which were more reliable and rigorous than the 1 year estimates.  This means that researcher must often choose between using current estimates that might be somewhat less reliable (1-year) or, if not on a year where a 5-year estimate is being conducted, use slightly older data that might be out-of-date.  This is a real concern for social workers who may want to understand how, for example, a recent economic or environmental crisis is their community could be impacting well-being and health. 

Accessing the ACS

The ACS can be accessed from several locations:

• QuickFacts- If you are not interested in downloading the data or running your own analyses, you can use the QuickFacts site to examine the ACS, generate your own tables, and read the latest U.S. Census publications. 

• DataFerrett- Can target and download several of the variables you might be interested in examining from the ACS.  DataFerrett limits the size of your data downloads so is not as useful for accessing large amounts of data. Still, can be useful if you are interested in a small number of variables. You must use Internet Explorer or Firefox when accessing DataFerrett. 

• IPUMS USA- The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series or IPUMS is by far the best place to download large portions of the ACS for analysis.  Hosted by the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota this clean open interface allows you to choose variables of interest and target specific years to generate custom data from the ACS. Users must create a login that requires a commitment that they will use the data for good, never evil.  Also, large data downloads must be cued in the system so you may have to wait a few hours before you receive an email letting you know that your download is complete.  The IPUMS system can directly generate data in whatever file type you may need it (SPSS, STATA, SAS...etc.) so, once your data is downloaded, you can easily start analysis. Simple and brilliant!