ACS Data Users Group

Dear all,

I have been looking for data on unemployment rate (or any basic economic indicators) by census tract or county during 2005-2009.

5-year ACS data appears to start from 2010, and no data between 2000 and 2009.

There is 3-year ACS data between 2005 and 2009, but it covers only large counties with more than 20,000 people, so it drops about 1/3 of counties.

I looked at IPUM NHGIS but it is not any better.

I would appreciate any help.

Thanks,

Kangoh

If you're really OK with county, have you looked at CPS, not ACS? I believe the CPS Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) supplement has employment status broken out by county.

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for your help, and I will check it.

Also, I found that USDA has data, County-level Data Sets | Economic Research Service

Kangoh

You can get county level unemployment back to 1990 from the BLS. https://www.bls.gov/data/

Look under Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS).

Hi Douglas,

Thanks for your help, and it is very useful.

Also, I found that USDA has data, County-level Data Sets | Economic Research Service, but it starts from 2000.

Kangoh

IPUMS NHGIS provides all tables from the 2005-2009 5-year ACS summary file, including tables on employment status and unemployment for counties and census tracts.

One reason you might not have found this information is if, within the NHGIS Data Finder, you selected a year filter for a single year (e.g., 2009) instead of the relevant 5-year period (2005-2009).

(NHGIS doesn't list 5-year data tables when a single year is selected because we found that people were selecting 5-year data very often in cases where 2010 or 2020 decennial census data were available, and they were selecting 5-year data ending in decennial years--e.g., 2020--much more often than other more recent 5-year periods that span the same decennial years. We wanted to ensure that if people selected the year 2010 or 2020, they would more easily find the census data, and we didn't want people to mistake 5-year data for single-year data.)

Note that the census tracts in 2005-2009 5-year ACS data mainly correspond with 2000 census tracts and not the 2010 census tracts used in 2010-2019 ACS data. That said, as explained here, in 19 counties, the 2009 tracts "are either those submitted to the Census Bureau for the 2010 Census, or a preliminary version of 2010 Census definitions."

Thank you for your help, Jonathan.

Kangoh