ACS Data Users Group

Hi all

Not a question about the ACS but a question about past decennial censuses.

1. Is there a similar discussion group about decennial censuses? Or is it okay to ask questions on this group?

2. I want to show trends using decennial censuses, for example, New York State population from the 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020 censuses, by race and ethnicity. So number of non-Hispanic or Latino Whites in 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020, number of non-Hispanic or Latino Black or African Americans in 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020, number of non-Hispanic or Latino Asians in 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020, number of Hispanics or Latinos, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020, and total population in 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020. Maybe add in 1980. All of this for New York State.

I can't quite tell how far back data.census.gov goes, but not to 1990.

Thanks

Gene Shackman, Applied Sociologist.

Hi Gene -

There isn't a decennial discussion group yet, but we're planning to launch a community for that! (If you're interested in participating in the design of the decennial community, feel free to apply: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=69aEemusNUO335dnBNSNwXXpzqKfB25NmdiLuXIf7rZUMlAzOEE1NDJIV1MzUzQ3NlhaNDRYNTVHWi4u)

For historical decennial census data, race/ethnicity questions and coding changed dramatically between 1980 and 2020, so I'd be cautious about any comparisons over time. And you're right that data.census.gov has redistricting data for 2000, 2010, and 2020 Census, but not for 1980 and 1990.

For older data, you could try the historical series on census.gov https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/data/tables.1990.html

Still, the simplest option might be to use IPUMS.

Hi Beth. Thanks for responding. Okay, I'll limit comparisons to 2000, 2010 and 2020. I've tried IPUMS a couple of times, I'll try again.

I hope you get very good people to join your steering committees.

Gene

Thanks, Beth, for the IPUMS referral.

Gene, I work at IPUMS. I can share some basic info to help you find what you're looking for...

IPUMS has two sites that provide historical (and recent) decennial census data. IPUMS NHGIS provides geographic summary tables from 1790 through the present, including state-level counts like what you're looking for. The IPUMS USA site provides only microdata: individual- and household-level responses to censuses and surveys (including the ACS). You could generate state-level counts from microdata, but it's more involved than just directly getting state-level census summary tables (as are available through NHGIS). So when you say you "tried IPUMS a couple times," I wonder if maybe you struggled to get state-level data from IPUMS USA. Hopefully, you find the NHGIS site to be more straightforward for your needs.

NHGIS even includes a range of "time series tables" that link together comparable statistics from multiple years, including tables that provide state-level total populations and counts by race and Hispanic origin for your years of interest.

To find that, I'd go to the NHGIS Data Finder and select these data filters:

• Geographic Levels: State
• Years: 1990 (or 1980, if you'd like to go back that far)
• Topics: Race and Hispanic Origin

Then below the filters, click on the TIME SERIES TABLE tab. You'll see we have two time series tables that provide counts of "Persons by Hispanic or Latino Origin by Race" going back to 1980. They each provide break down by a different set of race categories. To see time series tables for "Total Population," you'd just need to change your Topic filter.

To get data for these tables, first add any or all of them to your "Data Cart" and then continue to the "Options" page, where you can select which years you'd like to include in your download.

(You can't view the data on the NHGIS website. Instead, you just select which data you'd like to download, submit your request, and then NHGIS generates custom files that you can download. Note that most NHGIS data files are nationwide files, so your request will include records for all states.)

Also, I'm looking forward to joining a decennial census discussion group when that's available, but if you have any questions about historical census data before then (or after!), the IPUMS User Forum would also be a good place to ask.

Hi Jonathan, Thanks very much. I got a data set, following the steps you described. I'll have to work on this a bit to get exactly what I want.

Thanks again.

Gene