ACS Data Users Group

Hi All,

Does anyone have a list of variable names that would help me identify the median age, sex of population (in percent), median household income, and race (in percentages) for each state from 2010-2019 (or even earlier if that is possible)? There are a lot of variable names, and I wanted to check this forum to see if there were a few that were predominantly used in research. If there are any other important state level variables you would suggest to use, that would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for any support you may provide! For reference, I and querying the API using tidycensus.

Regards,

Joseph Navelski

I find the Census Reporter topic documentation to be really useful for this. Here, for example, is their income topic that describes the different income-related variables in ACS and when you might choose to use each one:

https://censusreporter.org/topics/income/

There are similar topic pages for many other areas that you are interested in.

Matt

Hi Matt, thanks for your reply! I did manage to use the B19013_001 for median HH income, but have not found the rest of the variables as of yet. When you mention "topic pages," you are referring to previous question that have been posted on this forum, correct?

I was talking about the Census Reporter Topic pages, which are all listed here: https://censusreporter.org/topics/

They have good overviews of a number of topic areas you seem interested in. Here is their Age and Sex topic page: https://censusreporter.org/topics/age-sex/ and their race/ethnicity topic page: https://censusreporter.org/topics/race-hispanic/

No to state the obvious, but the ACS Table Shells workbook is worth perusing. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/technical-documentation/table-shells.html

This is the complete codebook for the ACS.

Cheers--

AB

Hi Adam,

Thank you for your reply and for your source! I have been working with the workbook, but it has 15k+ variable code names to it. My thought was, and since I am a newbie at navigating these codebooks, someone might be able to point out some of the commonly used variable codes that have been used for past research at the state level.

Thanks again, and I will keep sifting through the codebook!

I have had to refine my search skills to use this document effectively. A tedious task to be sure. However, it builds character.

Cheers

AB

Adam, completely understand, and thanks again for referencing the codebook!

B01002_001E Should be median age

api.census.gov/.../B01002.html

Adam, thanks for your response! I think I am starting to understand how these variables are grouped. MEDIAN AGE BY SEX Total, is total median age for both sexes combined. This is making more sense.

Thanks Adam!

This is true for most of the ACS tables, they are often broken down by an additional variable and have to be aggregated to create a desired analysis table.

To take your example, searching for "Median Age" led me to table B01002, "Median Age by Sex":

This gives you a median age value for the entire population for a given geography (B01002_001) along with the breakdown by sex. In some cases, such as Table B01001, you have to add variables together to get a total. For example, to get the total number of children under 5, you need to add B01001_003E + B01001_027E. You also have to calculate a revised margin of error --Look in the technical docs to see how to do this.

Unfortunately, THERE IS NO WAY AROUND THIS TYPE OF DATA PROCESSING. Learning how to manipulate the table cells published by the Census Bureau is an essential skill.

Good luck with your project.

AB

Hi AB,

Just wanted to continue this feed as a have narrowed it down to a list of variables I am interested in. As per your recommendation, should I share the code names I found on this forum, or would that not be advised?

Thank you for your feedback!

Regards,

J