ACS Data Users Group

Hi all,

I'm new to the ACS Discussion group and had a question about the possibility of downloading ACS data at the census tract level. I'm initially interested in education level, households without a desktop or laptop, Without internet subscription, not using internet, income. etc.

This information is available state by state here. Microsoft Power BI in table format and on a map.

Is there a way to download entire US in 1 csv file?

Thanks,

Todd

There are 84,414 census tracts so usually you download data (ACS "B" detailed tables typically). for a single state or a single county within a state. The most effective way to do this is through the ACS "API" Application Programming interface. To do this you need some software. I use R a free open source statistical analysis system. There is a free graphical user interface (GUI) version called R Studio. There are "add on" packages that can download census data using the API. I'm pretty sure that there are slide decks on the Census website www.census.gov/data/academy/webinars.html There may be a webinar or slide deck that goes through doing this in R. R has a package "tidycensus" walker-data.com/tidycensus/ I'm pretty sure that the package can be downloaded and installed from the main R website cran.r-project.org. There are organizations that repackage ACS data and one of them my have csv files with tracts for an entire state. Many people from these organizations are members of this user group and they may be able to point you to another source for the files you need.

Best of Luck !

Dave Dorer

"Preview" the tables you need for a single census tract using data.census.gov so you can find the tables that you need. There are several tables involving computer and internet availability. I don't know if there are tables that also include education level. If not you need to use the PUMS files, which definitely require a statistical analysis program/package to process those files.

Thanks Dave. I am Python user (novice) and saw that there is a censusData package but am unable to get it to work yet. However, I have been able to download zipped files from areas of interest and then process in python.

You can use IPUMS NHGIS to get any of the standard ACS summary file tables (including those you described) for census tracts or other levels in CSV files that include the entire US and Puerto Rico. The site is free and requires only registration and agreement to a couple use terms (citation of use and no redistribution without permission). Feel free to reply here or reach us at nhgis@umn.edu if you have any questions about the site.

You can use MCDC's data extractor tool. Our 2016-2020 tract-level profiles are at

https://mcdc.missouri.edu/cgi-bin/broker?_PROGRAM=utils.uex2dex.sas&path=/data/acs2020&dset=ustracts5yr&view=0

And the base tables are in this directory:

https://mcdc.missouri.edu/cgi-bin/uexplore?/data/acs2020/base_tables_5yr

For education level, use: https://mcdc.missouri.edu/cgi-bin/broker?_PROGRAM=utils.uex2dex.sas&path=/data/acs2020/base_tables_5yr&dset=ustracts00_07&view=0

For internet, use https://mcdc.missouri.edu/cgi-bin/broker?_PROGRAM=utils.uex2dex.sas&path=/data/acs2020/base_tables_5yr&dset=ustracts25_29&view=0