2012-2016 ACS Data up on PolicyMap, Goodies Included

New ACS data!

The 2012-2016 Census American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates were released on Thursday, and are now up on PolicyMap (they actually went up on Saturday, record time for us!). This is our most popular dataset, with over 2,000 indicators. A newer year of data makes it that much more accurate, and helpful to data users.

As in past years, with the update to the ACS data, we’ve added some new, interesting indicators. Just in case you missed last year’s additions, you can read about them here, and the year before that here.

So what’s new this year, besides the data being available in record time?

Demographics:

• People with Disabilities – New age categories (<5, 18-64)
• Veterans – Poverty and disability status

Incomes & Spending:

• People in Poverty – Foreign born status

Economy:

• Jobs by Occupation:
  • Management, business, science, and arts occupations:
    • Management, business, and financial occupations:
      • Management occupations
      • Business and financial operations occupations
    • Computer, engineering, and science occupations:
      • Computer and mathematical occupations
      • Architecture and engineering occupations
      • Life, physical, and social science occupations
    • Education, legal, community service, arts, and media occupations:
      • Community and social service occupations
      • Legal occupations
      • Education, training, and library occupations
      • Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations
    • Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations:
      • Health diagnosing and treating practitioners and other technical occupations
      • Health technologists and technicians
  • Service occupations:
    • Healthcare support occupations
    • Protective service occupations:
      • Fire fighting and prevention, and other protective service workers including supervisors
      • Law enforcement workers including supervisors
    • Food preparation and serving related occupations
    • Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations
    • Personal care and service occupations
  • Sales and office occupations:
    • Sales and related occupations
    • Office and administrative support occupations
  • Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations:
    • Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations
    • Construction and extraction occupations
    • Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations
  • Production, transportation, and material moving occupations:
    • Production occupations
    • Transportation occupations
    • Material moving occupations

Education:

• School Enrollment – Pre-K, college, and graduate students
• Education Attainment – GED and Doctorate degrees

Health:

• Health Insurance – TRICARE and VA health care insurance types

 

And coming soon: Foreign born population, by country of birth!

One set of data that is not updated this year is the language data, which we added last year. This year’s update did not include language data at local geographies, so rather than reduce the granularity of the data to the state level, we kept the previous year’s data.

 

We’ll have more on this update, including dives into some of the new indicators, behind-the-scenes of how the data is updated and validated (It’s exciting! It’s exciting to me!), and the future of the Census and ACS.

For now, enjoy the new data, which, as I may have mentioned, took us only than two days to get online.