ACS Data Users Group

Hi ACS folks,

Could you please help with this question. When working with say a Total Population (b01003) table and choosing Geography, how could I choose a Block Group level and go across all counties in a state? It seems too cumbersome to have to download data county by county in a state like Texas, especially when I need some 35 tables.

Thank you very much for any help!

Oksana Nekrashevych

This will get you what you want: mcdc.missouri.edu/.../broker

Thank you! It seems to have a limited number of variables though. Or am I missing something? I need ACS table ID's:
B01003
B15003
C24020
B19113
B19001
B25077
B25064
B25088
B25092
B25003
B23025
B17021
C17002
B23008
B25044
B25049
B25014
B23025
B02001
B01001
C17002
C17002
B19057
B19056
B19301
B01001
B01001
B03003003
B16004
B25024
B25003
B08303
B08301
B09019

Oh, your previous question only mentioned the one table. Our base table collection is grouped roughly by subject. Start from this page instead: mcdc.missouri.edu/.../uexplore

so, your block groups for tables B01001 through B07413 are included in the dataset called "usbgs00_07.sas7bdat"; tables B08000 through B08604 are in usbgs08.sas7bdat, and so on.

Hope this helps

Also, if you have SAS and know how to use it, you can download these datasets directly using this link: mcdc.missouri.edu/.../

Then you could join them first by GeoID, so you truly could get all of these vars at the same time.

Warning: These are HUGE files, especially for the MOEs. And if you're looking at block groups, you'll definitely need the MOEs.

Thank you so much for your help!!!
I do have SAS and know a bit about it, but never used it since I got my Statistics certificate 6 years ago.
Do you have a code that you could share as an example of how to do several variables and join them by GeoID?
I would really appreciate it!

Something like:

data acs2018.combined;

merge

acs2018.usbgs00_07

acs2018.usbgs00_07_moes

acs2018.usbgs08

[...]

by GeoID;

run;

Pretty basic stuff.

Thank you very much!
It will help me to refresh my memories.
I have another question to better understand what's available on the census.gov website, and the summary files.
Those files do not have all the variables that can be found in tables, or did I miss it somehow?
I found b01001 and b01002, but no b01003 there. Do you know why?
Thank you so much for your help!!!

I don't understand what you mean. B01003 is definitely there, see for example data.census.gov/.../table

I mean summary files that are here: www2.census.gov/.../

According to the appendix at www2.census.gov/.../ACS_2018_SF_5YR_Appendices.xls, B01003 is indeed included, specifically in sequence file #3, position 130. So for example, the value of B01003e001 for Block Group 2, Census Tract 519, Sussex County, Delaware is 2,830.

These sequence files require processing before you can use them to look up variables by table.

OMG! I was looking there and could not find it.
Thank you so much for helping me to figure it out!!!
They have instructions, so processing it to convert to Excel table is no problem.
Now I have multiple ways to get the data I need.
Thank you a lot!
Have a wonderful day!

Hi Glenn!
I have a quick question on using the files:
usbgs00_07
usbgs08
usbgs09_16
usbgs17_20
usbgs21_24
usbgs25_28
I could find in the support excel files both variable names and table names(labels) for vars starting B00001i1.
I can only see table names for columns 1-12 with labels:
Geog summary level,
AreaName,
esriid,
State,
Stab,
County,
CBSA,
Metro Division of MSA,
CBSAYr,
Logrecno,
Tract,
BG,

Could you please help me find the names of vars I could use in a SAS program?

I will need to select only some vars from a merged table, but I want to pull all the ID columns to my table as well.

Thank you for your help!
Oksana

I don't know why this pasted as a picture -- hope it works for you

Great!
Thank you!

Hi Glenn!
I downloaded some files from mcdc.missouri.edu/.../ and it's marked 2018 in the directory name and in the file, but for 2017 and 2016 directory it says 2016 and 2015 inside the table. What year is the data, the one in directory name or in the table? Is 2017 data missing?
Thank you,
Oksana

Hello,
What column(s) in the 2017 tables show 2016 or 2015?

The one labeled CBSAYr.

That refers to the year of the CBSA definitions, not the data year.

Oh, thank you!

I am sorry, one more question. Do you know why I have run into the error with SAS: B19113i1(nor B19113i001) is not found in the 2016 data? I checked, it is in the list of vars for 2016. I am not sure what's going on.
Thank you so much for your help!

B19113 is not available at the block group level. See the 2016 5-year appendix here: www.census.gov/.../summary-file-documentation.2016.html

Thank you! I really appreciate your help!

I dont know that you can do this using data.gov. You'd probably be better off getting what you need from nhgis.org or work directly with the summary files off the FTP site www.census.gov/.../summary-file.html

I have the summary files in SQL files if you know to use that and want them, they are available here: gisdiva.com/.../

Thank you! I don't mind to work with summary files, but I am inexperienced with it. How to look where to find a variable like b01003 or b15003? I only could find some other variables. Am I confusing any terms? Thank you again!