2024A Release Overview

The AGS 2024A data release is now available. Here are the highlights that you will find in the new release.

• Many of the AGS data are available natively at the block level. Block level output of other datasets is handled by disaggregation techniques using the AGS block allocation tables. The following databases are currently native at block level (with more planned for 2024B including consumer expenditures, retail potential, and retail gap):
  • Core estimates and projections
  • Age by Income
  • Household Finances
  • Crime Risk
  • Panorama
  • Health Counts
  • Business Counts

• Complete 2020 baseline series, derived from the AGS reconditioned 2020 census and the 2018-2022 five-year ACS series. The coverage mirrors the available data in our core estimates and projections database while provides a fully articulated 2020 baseline set for time series analytics that, for some variables, goes back to 1970 with complete coverage from 1990.
• New and substantially improved Household Finances database (formerly known as Assets and Debts). The database has been expanded in terms of content, updated using the latest Survey of Consumer Finances (2022), and utilizes the AGS Synthetic Household model in order to model the SCF at the household level using the public use micro sample (PUMS) household level responses.
• A complete refresh of Panorama at the census block level which maintains the current sixty-eight segments intact. Now native at the census block level, this results in greater precision when coding address records to Panorama. The previous version was based on a hybrid block group – block model that identified ‘outliers’ at the block level. The new model captures the nuances of neighborhood differences to the finest level of detail.
• The MRI-Simmons database, consisting of nearly 11,000 attributes, has been fully rebuilt and expanded. Some variables are no longer available, but there are a number of new subject matter groups.
• All AGS data is now available on the Uber H3 hexagon boundaries from level 3 through 7. Level 3 is suitable for regional analysis, and level 7 is well suited to metropolitan scale work.  Level 7 corresponds roughly in size to the existing AGS GL geography (grid layer). Cartographic files are available from AGS without charge when used with an AGS base data subscription. These are available in either shapefile or Maptitude format, but arrangements can be made to obtain these in Mapinfo (mid/mif) or geoJson as required.

Geography Changes

In addition to the Uber H3 hexagon layers, there are a few changes in the geography layers:

• ZIP codes have been updated to January 2024 and match the AGS cartographic files.
• The New England metropolitan layer (NC) has been dropped by the US Census, and this has been retired from the files.
• The county subdivision (CS, CC), place (PL), and metropolitan area layers (MA, CA, and CB) have all been updated to the latest definitions: CS, CC, and PL are updated to the 2023 TIGER release, and the MA, CA, and CB layers to the latest Office of Management and Budget (OMB) definitions.
• For standard census geographies, we decided to maintain the 2020 boundaries as the base geography, despite the changes to Connecticut. For the 2024A release, the following geography layers are supported:

Users will receive the 2020 vintage by default, but most will also receive the 2022 revision.