ACS Data Users Group

I am being asked to try and locate low/moderate income households by census tract in Suffolk County for the ACS 2001-2005 period. The census data explorer doesn't go back that far, and the HUD User Exchange, which provides this information for the Community Development Block Grant, only posts data going back to around 2009. Does anyone have a suggestion how I can obtain at least the raw data, for which I can do the calculations for LMI? Thanks.

Seth Forman

Suffolk County EDP

The data are not available for those years from the ACS. The ACS data were first released in 2005 with 1 year data. 5-year estimates, which has data at Census Track level, were not available until 2009.

Thank you JamiRae. It seems I had forgotten. Your reply is greatly appreciated.

Hi Seth -

Data for 2001-2004 were before the ACS was fully implemented (and I often think of 2006--when group quarters were first included--as the beginning of the full survey). So that may explain why HUD data begin with 2009 (2009 tract data would cover the 5-year period 2005-2009).

And JamiRae and I must both have been typing the same thing at the same time!

Right! hahaha

Beth, I guess I knew this at one time, so don't think less of me. Your reply is greatly appreciated.

No worries AT ALL. The beauty of having a resource like this one is that we no longer need to keep every single detail in our brains--we each remember some things, share what we know, and ask others to help fill in any gaps.

Plus, the number of things my brain has blanked out on this year is... ahem... not 0. ;)

The data you want are from the 2000 Census. It had a long form, so those data would be there. I am pretty sure they classified low/moderate income in 2000. I would go back to HUDUSER and look.

It has to do with the Area Median Income, which is complexly determined based on household size. I know these sorts of data existed in 2000, because we used them in a case in Westchester. Hope this helps.

Andrew, thank you. I guess I knew this at one time. It seems I had forgotten. Your reply is greatly appreciated.