The American Community Survey

The decennial census of the United States is a constitutionally mandated function of the federal government, the main purpose of which is the apportionment of representatives. Over time, the scope of the census questionnaire was generally expanded, and in 1940, the...

Census Potpourri

As we have alerted readers in the past, the definitions of race and ethnicity will be changing over the next couple of years. As with most major changes, this has both positive and negative effects on users. On the plus side, the new definitions were outlined in the...

Classification Changes

In years past, the census has typically obtained race and ethnicity data through a separation of two concepts – race and Hispanic ethnicity. This caused much confusion, as even the definitions of what constitutes ‘race’ can be murky, and many people of Hispanic origin...

The Heart of the Matter

In many articles on the census disclosure avoidance program, we have hammered away at the damage inflicted on the 2020 census by a well-intentioned but overly complex and likely poorly implemented attempt at maintaining privacy. We published maps and tables, coined...

Disclosure Avoidance Woes

A few weeks ago, we looked at the male/female ratio of 21-year-olds at the block group level to highlight the issues in the 2020 census data. Some readers pointed out that while this was interesting, most of their analyses are for radius or drive time areas, and...

Transitioning to the 2020 Census

Starting a few years before the 2020 census, the bureau began discussing methodologies for improving ‘disclosure avoidance’. To be honest, we were highly skeptical of how this would play out, especially since the published methodology discussions were obtuse, reading...