ACS Data Users Group

This message is a follow-up to an exchange on the Census Developers Slack.

I noticed that the availability of B16001 in the 2019-2023 data is limited to the State and some multi-county areas (nation, state, metropolitan division, CSA, congressional district, and PUMA levels are the only geographies available). These geographies do not help my users. What I need is the detailed language list from B16001 by age (using the age categories in B16003 is fine. I need to identify the voting age population) at the COUNTY level. Counties in Colorado are required to produce multi-language ballots (see HB21-1011, https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb21-1011). Providing ballot language in Spanish is not the issue. Providing ballot language in the Asian languages is an issue, given the lack of a detailed accounting of these languages by voting age.

I have raised this issue multiple times on this forum, the Census Slack channel, and in discussions with ACS SMEs. The apparently arbitrary limitations of this table series geographies present a problem for my users. The current tables with detailed language, B16001 and B16002 (which tabulates language spoken at the household level), are not sufficient. I had hoped that the 2019-2023 ACS 5-Year data release would have resolved this issue, but it did not.

Adam Bickford

Colorado State Demography Office

Hi Adam,

Thanks for sharing your feedback. I'm sharing a reply from one of our SMEs:

The level of geographic detail available for B16001 is limited by the Census Bureau's Disclosure Review Board. There is a collapsed table, C16001, available at the county level that provides some breakout of Asian languages. However, it sounds like what you are looking for is detailed language for the population age 18 and over. No standard table exists for that combination. You may be interested in a custom tabulation to meet your very specific needs. More information about requesting an ACS Custom Tabulation is available here: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/data/custom-tables.html.