ACS Data Users Group

Hello. I'd like to obtain the labor force participation rate for those persons 55 years and older. I think the ACS table I need is S2301, however, the percentages are for 5-year age groupings (e.g., 55-59 years, etc.). Are there other ACS tables with COUNTS so I can estimate rates for 55 years and older? I suppose I could simply use the percentages from the 5-year age groupings to estimate COUNTS and then sum the counts for the 5 year age groupings for 55 years and older. But this seems like a lot of extra work. Thanks!

In my humble opinion (I'm new) if you find a table that gets you what you need even if you have to use several fields, consider that a win. I use S2301 because that's what I found was the best for the labor force. I also look at S2303 hours worked, S2401 service industry, B99087 worked from home as these are often used and are also interesting. Pulling from the API is very easy and only gives you the fields you want, so hopefully, you're using these (you can group like tables into one API, just note there are exceptions and not all tables with the same letter code are necessarily the same.

These are the subject tables and fields I use (if it helps), this example is for all counties ACS1, just edit ACS1 to acs5 and it works great.

https://api.census.gov/data/2021/acs/acs1/subject?get=S0101_C01_001E,S0101_C01_030E,S0101_C01_032E,S0101_C02_002E,S0101_C02_022E,S0101_C02_026E,S0101_C05_001E,S1101_C01_002E,S1101_C01_004E,S1101_C01_019E,S1501_C02_005E,S1501_C02_015E,S1701_C03_001E,S1701_C03_002E,S1701_C03_003E,S1701_C03_010E,S1901_C01_002E,S1901_C01_011E,S1901_C01_013E,S2101_C04_001E,S2201_C04_001E,S2301_C02_001E,S2301_C04_001E,S2303_C01_031E,S2401_C01_018E,S2701_C01_017E,S2701_C01_023E,S2701_C01_024E,S2701_C01_032E,S2701_C01_035E,S2701_C05_001E,S2701_C05_002E,S2701_C05_011E,NAME&for=county:*

There's also the Base Table: B23027, which gives you work vs. did not work (no breakdown of unemployed & looking vs. not in labor force though). It does gives you full-time vs. part-time!

I usually use B23001: SEX BY AGE BY EMPLOYMENT STATUS FOR THE POPULATION 16 YEARS AND OVER There is an age category that begins at age 55. You have to add up across age categories above 55. Also check the Census website on employment variables. There are statistics from the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics). I believe that there is a white paper comparing the ACS methodology to the BLS methodology. There is a tread from a couple of months ago that discusses this topic. The employment rate is employed/(employed + unemployed looking for work) Denominator "in labor force"

Dave