NWX-US DEPT OF COMMERCE 

Moderator: Robin Wyvill 

12-03-12/12:00 pm CT 

Confirmation # 7864542 

Page 1 

NWX-US DEPT OF COMMERCE 

Moderator: Robin Wyvill 

December 3, 2012 

12:00 pm CT 

Coordinator: Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time all participants are in a 

listen-only mode. 

 During the question-and-answer session you may press star 1 on your touchtone phone if you would like to ask a question over the phone. 

 Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections you may 

disconnect at this time. 

 I now would like to turn the meeting over to Mrs. Stacy Vidal. 

Stacy Vidal: Thank you. Good afternoon, I'm Stacy Vidal from the Census Bureau's Public 

Information Office. 

 I'd like to welcome everyone today to our pre-release webinar on the 

American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Before we begin I'd like to 

briefly discuss the outline for today. Our presenter is Barbara Downs, the 

Chief for the Data Analysis and User Education Branch in our American 

Community Survey Office. 

 Once we conclude today's presentation we'll convene a question-and-answer 

session. During the Q&A we ask that for everyone who would like to ask a 

question that you queue yourselves by pressing star 1. We'll first take 

questions from members of the media followed by questions from the public. 
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 Before we begin I'd also like to let you know that the information we'll be 

discussing today will be posted in our online Press Kit which you can find by 

visiting census.gov and clicking on the third moving image in the upper left 

corner of the page. 

 So without further ado I'd like to turn it over to Barbara. 

Barbara Downs: Thank you Stacy. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. I'm 

going to go over our outline now. Our webinar will cover the released 

schedule ACS basic or details about the survey and ACS estimates. 

 New features with this release such as changes in our data products, 

improvements in our methodology and the addition of zip code tabulation 

areas to the geographies for which estimates are released. I'll also provide a 

brief overview of the ACS briefed series, some guidance on comparing ACS 

data and throughout an overview of navigating the ACS Web site and the 

American FactFinder system in order to obtain ACS documentation and 

estimates for your analyses. 

 For 2007-11 5-year estimates release is our final release of ACS estimates this 

year. We previously released 1-year estimates in September, 3-year estimates 

in October and are now releasing the 5-year estimates. The press embargo 

starts tomorrow December 4 and the data will be publicly released on 

Thursday, December 6. 

 In addition to the 2007-11 ACS 5-year estimates we're releasing this week we 

will also release the 2009-11 3-year PUMS file. The PUMS files are a set of 

untabulated records about individual people or housing units. Public Use 
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Microdata Areas or PUMAs are the lowest level of geography in the PUMS 

files. 

 PUMAs contain a minimum of about 100,000 residents. Researchers can use 

this microdata file to create their own estimates and analyses of ACS data. 

The 3-year PUMAs files contain records for about 3% of housing units. We 

released 1-year PUMAs files in October and we'll release the 2007-11 5-year 

PUMAs file in January 2013. 

 Turning to Survey basics, the ACS was fully implemented in 2005. It is an 

ongoing survey that samples over 3.5 million addresses per year and collects 

data on a wide range of demographic, social, economic and housing 

characteristics including age, sex, race, education, marital status, employment 

and income, commuting, housing costs and housing type in addition to other 

topics. Our data collection modes currently include mail, telephone and inperson interviews. 

 Beginning with the 2013 ACS the Census Bureau will begin collecting ACS 

data via the Internet. Sampled housing units currently receive an advance 

letter notifying the residents that a survey will soon arrive in the mail. 

Beginning with the mail out for the January 2013 sample which takes place in 

late December sampled housing units will receive a letter notifying residents 

that they can log on to a secure Internet site and complete the ACS. 

 Housing units who do not complete an online survey will then receive a paper 

questionnaire followed by phone and personal visit methods for nonrespondents. 

 The ACS estimates are published on an annual basis. 1-year estimates are 

published for geographies with 65,000 or more people; 3-year estimates are 
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published for geographies with 20,000 or more people and 5-year estimates 

are published for all geographic areas down to such small areas as census 

tracts and block groups. 

 The ACS estimates are period estimates. They describe the average 

characteristics over a specific period of time. Because the ACS is collected on 

a daily basis for an entire year the measured characteristics represent that time 

period. So the 2011 income characteristic describes the income over the entire 

year, not on any particular day. Please also note that 5-year estimates are not 

an average of five 1-year estimates; they're an estimate of those characteristics 

over the entire 5-year period. 

 So the 2007-11 income characteristic describes the average income during 

those five years based on data collected over the entire five year period. Dollar 

values are inflation adjusted so that all five years of data collection are using 

the same scale. 

 Turning to this week's release these estimates cover the period from January 1, 

2007 to December 31, 2011 and reflect geographic boundaries in place as of 

January 1, 2011. Dollar values are inflation adjusted to 2011 dollars. This 

week we're releasing over 11 billion characteristic estimates for over 700,000 

unique geographic areas and these estimates are published down to the census 

tract and block group level regardless of margins of error, but after taking 

account of filtering rules. 

 Here's a chart showing the percent with published ACS estimates for some of 

the many geographies we release. To put it in perspective the 5-year estimates 

are published for all states, counties, places, school districts and census tracts. 

In comparison the 1 and 3 year files are published for only some of these 

geographies. For example 1-year estimates are published for 26% of counties 
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and 3-year estimates are published for 59% of counties while 5-year estimates 

are published for 100% of counties. 

 Now that we've established how many estimates we're releasing let's turn to 

the products that will display those estimates. The 5-year estimates are 

published in a sub-set of the data products prepared for the 1 and 3 year 

estimates, specifically while the 5-year estimates are produced for detailed 

tables, subject tables, data profile tables, geographic comparison tables, 

Summary Files and PUMS files, they are not included in ranking tables, 

comparison profiles, selected population profiles or narrative profiles. 

 The 5-year estimate also include four fewer topics than the 1 and 3-year 

estimates due to questionnaire changes in the last few years. We will have five 

years of estimates for health insurance, disability status and marital history 

after the 2012 survey year and expect to publish those 5-year estimates in 

2013. We will have five years of estimates on fields of bachelor's degree after 

the 2013 survey year and plan to release those 5-year estimates in 2014. 

 I'd like to turn your attention now to accessing these 2007-11 ACS 5-year 

estimates via American FactFinder. The first thing you would do is go to the 

FactFinder page. You can get there via census.gov or by directly entering 

factfinder2.census.gov into your browser address window. This tool offers 

two ways to access estimates. You can use the Quick Start feature which is 

that box in the center of the page if you know the Table ID number of the 

product you're looking for. If not you can search for products using the 

buttons in the left margin. 

 Table ID numbers are assigned to each data product. They consist of one to 

three letters to describe the type of product. For example B for a detailed table 
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or GCT for a geographic comparison table and two or more numbers to 

identify the topic specific table. 

 All right, now I'm going to show you how to search for a product. In the left 

margin go to the Topics button, click on it to expand the topic, then select the 

data set from the drop-down box in order to expand the list of available data 

sets. You would select the 2011 ACS 5-year estimates. 

 On the next slide you'll see that 2011 ACS 5-year estimates appears in the 

Your Selections box in the upper left corner. I'm showing you what the screen 

will look like once the data are released, but since I cannot show you the 

actual 2007-11 ACS estimates the examples to follow will use the 2006-10 

ACS 5-year estimates. 

 Once you've selected your data you will want to select the type of data 

product you're looking for. We're going to select the data profiles. So you 

would expand the Product Type button, then select the data profile product. 

Finally you would select the geography you're interested in. Now remember 

the 5-year ACS estimates are available at over 700,000 unique geographies, 

down to the block group level. All geographies except for those block groups 

are available in American FactFinder. 

 To get to the block group estimates you'll need to use the ACS Summary Files 

which I'll describe in a few minutes. Back to selecting geographies, select the 

Geographies tab. An overlay box will appear defaulting to the list option 

which allows you to select several commonly used geographic areas. If you 

know the precise geography you're looking for you may be able to choose it 

from the list option. 
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 However if you want a small area estimate such as a census tract, but don't 

know the tract number you're looking for American FactFinder has a helpful 

feature in the Address tab. If you select the Address tab and enter the address 

of interest, then click the Go button you'll be provided a full list of 

geographies for that address. You have to click Go. You can select multiple 

geographies from that list. 

 In this case I've entered the address of my high school, clicked on Go, then 

selected the county, town and census tract that that high school is located in. 

The resulting data profile shows me a comparison of Cook County, Illinois, 

Oak Park Village, Illinois and the census tract for the high school. I selected 

all three of these to highlight a key feature of the 5-year estimate. 

 Estimates for Cook County are available in the 1-year ACS. Estimates for Oak 

Park are available in the 3-year ACS, but not the 1-year and estimates for the 

census tract area available only in the 5-year ACS. In order to make an 

appropriate comparison of these three geographies I should use data that refers 

to a common time period, so I should not compare the 1-year, 3-year and 5-

year estimates to each other. 

 Instead I should compare apples to apples and the 5-year estimate allow me to 

do just that and compare the educational attainment of persons 25 years and 

over in Cook County, Oak Park and the census tract containing the high 

school in the Years 2007 to 2011. 

 I'd also like to show you another data product that is useful for making 

comparisons using ACS 5-year estimates. The geographic comparison table 

allow you to compare a variety of geographic areas on a single measure. You 

can compare up to 78 different characteristics across states, counties, places, 

metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas, combined statistical areas, 
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congressional districts, urban and rural areas, urbanized areas, PUMAs, school 

districts and American Indian areas, Alaska Native areas, Hawaiian Home 

Lands and Alaska Native Regional Corporations. 

 In this case I return to the example of educational attainment in my home state 

of Illinois. The results of this selection via that data products option in AFF 

shows the percentage of people 25 years and over who've completed high 

school in all places such as cities, towns and villages in Illinois. And I can 

make comparisons amongst these groups. They're listed alphabetically, so I 

can compare Oak Park to other villages nearby. 

 Okay. Next I'd like to turn to the ACS Summary Files. The ACS Summary 

File is a set of comma-delimited text files that contain all of the Detailed 

Tables for the 5-year estimates. The Summary File contains only Detailed 

Tables. Block group level estimates are not available via American 

FactFinder, so you'll need to use the Summary File to access that level of 

geography. 

 The Summary File is available via the Census Bureau's FTP site at 

www2.census.gov and will be accessible via Data Ferrett about a week after 

the data release. I will provide a link to the Summary File at the end of the 

presentation. 

 Now this is a screenshot of the sequenced files. That screenshot may have 

been a little frightening, don't worry. You can also use a Summary File 

Retrieval Tool that we have that will allow you to easily access the block 

group level estimates as well as all of the other levels of geography that are 

available in the release. The Retrieval Tool is available on our Web site, 

census.gov/ACS. 
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 The Retrieval Tool is an Excel macro that is ideal for downloading 20 tables 

or less for all published geographies within a state. In Step 1 select your state 

of interest. Here I picked Michigan. Then select your data product or topic of 

interest. Here I picked the 2006-10 ACS 5-year estimates. Then click Next. 

 In Step 2 select the table of interest. Table numbers are the same format as the 

numbers in American FactFinder. So in this example I selected Table B01001 

and then checked the box next to tract and block groups only because that's 

the geography I'm interested in. This Retrieval Tool will be able to access the 

2007-11 5-year estimates starting on December 6. Here are the results and as 

you can see I now have Table B01001 sex by age for block groups within the 

great state of Michigan. 

 As a reminder not all tables are available at the block group level, so I suggest 

you check out our Appendix E of the Summary File technical document for a 

list of table availability. 

 Now that we've discussed how to access the data I'd like to talk a little bit 

about the data product changes for this year. We don't have too many. We 

have a total of eight new detailed tables. Six provide additional detail and two 

provide new content. Overall we have four new migration tables, three new 

commuting tables and one new employment table. 

 The four new migration tables replace the collapsed version of these tables 

that were published in previous years. And two of the three commuting tables 

replace collapsed versions of those tables that were published in previous 

years. This is a good time to remind you that 5-year estimates are produced 

for either base or collapsed versions, but not both. So in this case we're 

replacing the shorter, condensed, collapsed versions with more detailed 

versions. 
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 Two new tables showing content include Table B08604 which measures 

worker population for workplace geography. Many of our data users have 

requested this information and we're pleased to announce that we're releasing 

it this year with the 5-year estimates. And the new Employment Table B23025 

is a less detailed version of Table B23001. B23001 shows employment, 

unemployment, labor force and armed forces data broken down by age and 

sex. 

 Many data users would like to have this information not broken down by age 

and sex, so we've created a new table for you, Table B23025 and we hope you 

like it. 

 One noteworthy data product modification is in Subject Table 1601, language 

spoken at home. This table was modified to include information about 

language spoken at home for citizens 18 years and over. In previous years a 

section for citizens 18 years and over was not available. And as I mentioned 

before all tables except for block group level tables are available on American 

FactFinder and the block group estimates are available in the Summary File. 

 While we didn't make too many changes to data product we did implement a 

number of methodological changes in 2011 to improve the accuracy and 

reliability of our estimates. Starting in June 2011 we increased the sample size 

from about 2.9 million addresses to 3.5 million addresses. This should 

improve the reliability of estimates for all areas. 

 We also increased personal visit follow-up to sampling rates and selected 

American Indian areas, Alaska Native Village statistical areas, Hawaiian 

Home Lands and remote Alaska. In January 2011 we modified the sample 

design to improve the reliability of estimates for small census tracts. This 
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improvement increases the sampling rates for smaller tracts and slightly 

decreases the sampling rates for larger tracts thereby minimizing the 

differences in the reliability of our estimates. 

 And finally we changed the group quarter estimation methodology to improve 

sub-state estimates of the GQ population and its characteristics. 

 And for the first time we're releasing ACS estimates for zip code tabulation 

areas or ZCTAs. We will continue to release estimates for this geographic 

area type with the 5-year ACS estimates every year. The Census Bureau 

identifies five digit zip codes using a five digit code; this may contain leading 

zeros. This code represents the most frequently occurring zip code for the 

addresses within the ZCTA. 

 However many ZCTAs do include areas which have addresses that use a 

different zip code for mail delivery. It is just not the most frequently occurring 

zip code for the addresses in that area, thus zip codes and ZCTAs are not the 

same concept as zip codes are linear while ZCTAs are approximate area 

representation of the zip code service areas. 

 Some zip codes represent very few addresses, sometimes only one like a 

business location and therefore will not appear in the ZCTA universe. 

Additionally the Census Bureau prepares brief reports on a variety of ACS 

topics. These brief views the ACS 1-year, 3-year and 5-year data. And already 

this year the Census Bureau has released several reports. 

 This slide shows you the upcoming reports that we'll use ACS 5-year data. 

You can find all of our ACS briefs on the ACS Web site which is 

www.census.gov/acs. I'll show you the location of the briefs later in the 

presentation. 
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 As I demonstrated with the earlier example using the data profiles there are 

many potential comparisons to be made using ACS estimates, so here's some 

guidance that we like to give. Compare across geographies and population 

sub-groups. Be careful comparing across data sets. Do not compare 2007-11 

ACS 5-year estimates to 2006-10 ACS 5-year estimates. Do not mix 1-year, 3-

year and 5-year estimates when making comparison. 

 Whenever possible compare percentages, means, medians and rates instead of 

totals. Finally don't expect American Community Survey estimates to match 

Decennial Census counts or estimates from other surveys. We're providing in 

our slide a link to a blog from September 6 that explains this even more. You 

can find it at blogs.census.gov. 

 We also provide additional specific guidance on our ACS Web site which is 

census.gov/acs. On that page you can find information about comparison 

guidance and our table's comparison tool. 

 The last few sections of this presentation will cover accessing information via 

the ACS Web site. So first I'm going to show you how to access some of our 

documentation about the survey and the comparison guidance. To access it, 

again visit the ACS web page at census.gov/acs. This is what our page looks 

like as of yesterday actually. 

 Now to find where the ACS documentation is you'll want to go to Data and 

Documentation in the toolbar and then choose Data Releases. You can go to 

the Data Release section either through the left margin or via the text in the 

main body of the page. Once you're at the Data Release section you'll see that 

we provide a nice summary of new and notable information related to each 

estimates release. 
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 Looking at the left margin you can also see that we have a variety of 

information available for data users. You can look at information for each 

year's data release since 2007. Within those you can see product changes, 

specific information about the released schedule and a direct link to the ACS 

brief that we have published. You can also find all the briefs via looking at the 

Library tab at the top of the page. 

 In addition the release specific information we have data product descriptions, 

a page devoted to documentation about the surveys including accuracy of the 

data statement and information about statistical testing. We have a page 

devoted to the geographies for which data is published including some maps. 

There's a link to the FTP site for downloading data, a page devoted to the 

Summary File including technical documentation and access to the Summary 

File Retrieval Tool. 

 And you can't see it on your slide, but there's also a link to the PUMS file and 

the PUMs documentation directly via the left margin. And from there you can 

get additional technical documentation and access to the downloaded PUMS 

files. 

 Now that I've shown you the documentation I'm going to show you how to 

access the comparison guidance I referenced a moment ago. To get to the 

guidance you would first select the Guidance for Data Users drop-down menu 

and choose Comparing ACS Data. From there, there are many options in the 

left margin. If you select 2011 you will see topic by topic comparison 

guidance for the 2011 ACS estimates. 

 This is what the comparison guidance page looks like. You can select any of 

those topics that will open up an additional section and that will show you 
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more about comparing ACS estimates over time and with Census 2000 and 

the 2010 census. 

 The last bit of guidance I'll show you is in the left margin. If you select the 

ACS Census Table Comparison you can learn more about how ACS data 

products compared to data products that were created for Census 2000 which 

was the last time these characteristics were measures in a Decennial Census. 

 Once that is selected you enter either the ACS table ID number or the Census 

2000 data product number, submit the information and you'll be provided the 

number of its ACS or Census counterpart if it's available. 

 Well thank you very much for participating in our presentation. I'm going to 

recap now. 

 Again the ACS 5-year estimate provide a wide range of local statistics on 

people, housing and the economy. We have a press embargo that begins 

tomorrow, December 4 at 10:00 am and you can learn more about the 

embargo at census.gov/newsroom/embargo.html. And the data will be 

released to the public on Thursday, December 6. 

 And as promised there are several different Web site links. So for more 

information on the ACS in general visit our Web site at census.gov/acs. It will 

be updated on December 6 with all the new documentation related to the 

2007-11 ACS 5-year estimate. Guidance for data users is available at that 

same page by selecting the Guidance for Data Users tab. 

 American FactFinder can be found at factfinder2.census.gov. The FTP site for 

downloading ACS Summary Files is www2.census.gov. You can also access 

Data Ferrett which is an online analysis tool at dataferrett.census.gov. And if 
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you would like to view some summary information via the Census Bureau's 

Quick Fact go to census.gov and Quick Facts will have new 2007-11 ACS 

estimates included in it on Thursday the 6th. 

 And now I'm going to turn it back to Stacy. Thank you so much. 

Stacy Vidal: Thanks Barbara. If you have any additional questions - or just in a moment 

we'll go to a Q&A session. Following the session if you have any questions 

please feel free to give us a call. If you're with the media you can call 301-

763-3030. Or for members of the public you can call 1-800-923-8282. 

 And with that we'll go ahead and start taking questions and answers. 

 Operator? 

Coordinator: Thank you. At this time we will begin the question-and-answer session. To 

ask a question you may press star 1 on your touch-tone phone. Please unmute 

your phone and record your name clearly when prompted. To withdraw your 

question please press star 2. 

 Once again to ask a question please press star 1 and record your name. 

Stacy Vidal: While we wait for folks to queue themselves I would like to point out our 

online Press Kit is available. Today's slides have already been posted at the 

start of this presentation, so you can go back and refer to the things that 

Barbara described. 

 You'll see the link there on your screen or you can simply go to 

www.census.gov and click on Number 3. You'll see the slide or those moving 

images at the upper left corner of the page. 
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 You can also follow us on Twitter. Our handle is @censusbureau and we 

invite you to join us in conversation using the hashtag #ACS. 

Coordinator: And one moment for our first question. 

 Our first question comes from John Pitkin with Analysis and Forecasting, Inc. 

Your line is open. 

John Pitkin: Yes thank you for taking my question. My question is what population 

controls were used for the 2007-2011 5-year estimate? I'm not sure how that 

relates to the 2010 Census or whether the earlier years are still based on the 

2000 Census base. 

Barbara Downs: I’m going to have Mark Asiala answer that question. He's from our - darn it 

what does the acronym stand for? 

Mark Asiala: Decennial Statistical Studies Division. The controls that we have used for the 

2010 data products and the 2011 data products this year all use the 2010 base 

controls. 

 For the multi-year products we do take an average of the population estimates 

over the period. So for the 2007-2011 5-year data we take the average of the 

population estimates over 2007, 8, 9, 10 and 11 and we control to that 

average. So they won't match up to the final year or to the 2010 Census or 

anything like that. 

Stacy Vidal: Okay. Operator, we'll take the next question. 
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Coordinator: Our next question comes from Ben Horowitz with Greater New Orleans 

Community Data Center. Your line is now open. 

Ben Horowitz: Hi, thank you again for taking my question. I just wanted to confirm that 

block group data will be available using the Summary File Retrieval Tool to 

the public on December 6. I just wanted to confirm that. 

Barbara Downs: Yes indeed. 

Ben Horowitz: Thank you very much. 

Barbara Downs: You bet. 

Coordinator: Our next question comes from Gene Shackman with New York State 

Department of Health. Your line is open. 

Gene Shackman: Hi, I'm guess not entirely clear why we can't compare the 2007-11 with the 

previous year data? 

Barbara Downs: The question was why we can't compare the 2006-10 with the 2007-11 data? 

Gene Shackman: Yes. 

Barbara Downs: All right, Karen King from also the Decennial Statistical Surveys Division - I 

only know acronyms, I'm sorry. Actually Karen is going to address that one. 

Karen King: Hello. We discourage you using - estimating the comparison between the '06 

to '10 with the '07 to '11 because four of the five years that are in those 

estimates overlap. So since there's only one year difference between them 
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there isn't really an opportunity for a lot of change between those estimates 

unless they're very highly correlated. 

Gene Shackman: Okay. Very clear answer. Thank you. 

Coordinator: And once again if you participants would like to ask a question please press 

star 1 and record your name. 

 Our next question comes from Courtney Mabeus with the Frederick NewsPost. Your line is open. 

Courtney Mabeus: Hi, yes again thanks for having us today. I guess just follow-up on the last 

question then. If we're looking for new information to kind of shake out of this 

data, what's the best way to kind of find the changes comparing 2006-2010 

with 2007-11 isn't the best possible way? 

Barbara Downs: Karen's coming back. 

Karen King: Could you repeat the question? I was a little far from the phone. 

Courtney Mabeus: Sure. Sure, is using the 2006-2010 data and comparing that to 2007-11 isn't 

the best way to kind of shake out some stories - what's the best information to 

use to compare that to? I'm just a bit confused as to what I would look to 

them. 

Karen King: I'm trying to think. I'm sorry, I don't see if you can compare 2000 in some 

cases. 

Karen King: Yes that's true. You can compare 5-year estimates to the Census 2000. 
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Barbara Downs: And the table's comparison tool would come in very handy for that. 

Courtney Mabeus: Okay. 

Karen King: If I could get your name and your phone number again, I can call you. 

Courtney Mabeus: Oh sure. 

Stacy Vidal: Or you can give us a call at the Public Information Office at 301-763-3030. 

Also generally speaking you can look at comparing across geographies like 

Barbara was talking about. So really looking at - so your state and then within 

your state. 

 You'll also see on the embargo site this week we'll have some information 

looking at some of the Top 25 metro areas of that population. And then within 

those areas it will give you an example of how you can look at places or rather 

cities and towns within that metro area to see how they're comparing across a 

variety of characteristics. 

 So looking at geographies is one good comparison that you can make even if 

you can't maybe necessarily look at a time period that you might like prefer. 

Courtney Mabeus Okay. Thank you. And one additional question on top of that. 

Stacy Vidal: Okay. 

Courtney Mabeus: I was - I had some computer questions at the very beginning, sorry. I may 

have missed this, but the data that's collected is that collected each year 

throughout the five year period or is it just one large collection? How does 

that - how is the five year summary snapshot taken I guess? 
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Barbara Downs: The data is collected on a daily basis every day for the last five years. 

Courtney Mabeus: Okay. 

Barbara Downs: So all of that data is aggregated. 

Courtney Mabeus: Okay. 

Coordinator: And our next question comes from (Stephanie Larose) with Baxter College. 

Your line is open. 

(Stephanie Larose): Hi, we use the data here for joining it with GIS Shapefiles, specifically the 

TIGER/Line Shapefiles. 

 And I've noticed if I download from the FactFinder Web site there is a (GO) 

ID which is put back into - used to join to those shapefiles, but if I want to get 

block group data or larger data set I have to use the Summary File Retrieval 

Tool in Excel sheet. 

 And that does not have the (GO) ID; it has a logical record number. But as far 

as I know I can't find a way to join that to the shapefile I can use. 

Barbara Downs: For that question we have Gretchen Gooding from my office who would like 

to address it. 

Gretchen Gooding: Yes if you looked into the Summary File, in the geography file the (GO) 

ID is in there. It's not in the estimate or margin of error file. And if you also 

take a look at the Summary File tech doc there is a section about joining our 
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files with the shapefiles. I can't remember what section it is off the top of my 

head, but it's in there. 

(Stephanie Larose): I'm sorry, what was the documentation? 

Gretchen Gooding: It's the Summary File technical document. It's on that Summary File page 

we talked about. There's a link there to the tech doc. 

(Stephanie Larose): Okay. Thank you very much. 

Gretchen Gooding: Yes. 

Coordinator: Our next question comes from (Susan Devir) with the Georgia DHS, Division 

of Aging Services. Your line is open. 

(Susan Devir): Good afternoon and thank you for taking my question. I wondered at what 

time the data will be available to the public on the 6th please? 

Stacy Vidal: Well the public embargo - or they'll be released for the public at 12:01 am on 

our Web site, however it takes a little while to get it up on our - in American 

FactFinder on the live site. So sometime the morning of the 6th by 10:00 am. 

(Susan Devir): By 10:00. Thank you kindly. 

Stacy Vidal: Sure and the ACS web page will be updated at the same time as the data on 

American FactFinder. 

Coordinator: One moment for our next question. 

 Our next question comes from Nicholas Zill with Westat. Your line is open. 
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Nicholas Zill: Yes I'd like to ask about - I want to make comparisons of trends at the city 

level including some relatively smaller cities, but I would prefer to make a 

comparison say between 2011 1-year estimate versus the 2006-2010 5-year 

estimate in order to reduce the standard error of the comparisons. 

 But you say that that's not recommended. Could you clarify that? 

Karen King: Sure, this is Karen. She's just going to provide you a more technical answer 

than I probably would. 

Karen King: I just want to make sure you're trying to compare the 2011 with the 2006-10. 

Was that your question? 

Nicholas Zill: Yes right. 

Karen King: We don't recommend you mixing the 1-year and the 5-year together. 

Nicholas Zill: But using just the 1-year you have quite large standard errors for some of the, 

you know, even very fairly good size cities. So that it's unlikely to have - to 

obtain statistical significance? 

Karen King: I think it would depend on the area that you are talking about, but I would be - 

using the 5-year data with standard error on the 1-year data is just not 

something that we would recommend doing at this time. 

 Again if you would contact the PIO we could try to address your specific 

question individually. 

Nicholas Zill: Okay. Thanks. 
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Coordinator: Our next question comes from Gene Shackman with the New York State 

Department of Health. Your line is open. 

Gene Shackman: Thanks for taking my question again. I think I can clarify some of what people 

are asking. Rather than compare the 2006 - I mean rather than compare the 

2006-2011 to the 2000 - to the 1-year, previous 5-year data compare it to 

some earlier 5-year period where there isn't as much overlap. 

Barbara Downs: Do we have enough? Okay. You can actually compare non-overlapping 3-year 

files if you're interested in looking at time trends. 

Gene Shackman: Yes that would work for many counties and for states, but there are - the 

earliest 5-year is less overlap with the most recent 5-year, isn't it? 

Barbara Downs: Yes so we still don’t recommend that you compare overlapping time periods. 

Gene Shackman: None of them? Oh all right. Thank you. 

Barbara Downs: Sure. Sorry. 

Coordinator: And our last question comes from Doug Morrison with the New York State 

Department of Environmental Conservation. Your line is open. 

Doug Morrison: Hi, thank you for taking my call. Is there any detailed guidance available for 

comparing the 2006-2010 estimates or the '07 to '11 estimates with the 2010 

Census data, at least for race and population data? 

Barbara Downs: Yes that is on the Comparison Guidance page... 
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Doug Morrison: Okay. 

Barbara Downs: ...that I showed you. There are three columns. The first shows year to year or 

ACS comparisons and ACS versus Decennial Census and ACS Census 2000 

and then ACS versus 2010 Census. 

Doug Morrison: Okay. 

Barbara Downs: It's topic by topic comparison guidance. 

Doug Morrison: Okay. Thank you. 

Barbara Downs: Sure 

Stacy Vidal: Operator, do we have any further questions at this time? 

Coordinator: No ma'am, I show no further questions. 

Stacy Vidal: All right, well just do a recap. Again tomorrow morning around 10:00 am 

we'll publish the estimates to our Embargo Web site. If you need embargo 

access and you're currently a member of the media please feel free to check 

that option out. 

 You can just go to census.gov/newsroom and then they'll be a link to embargo 

from there and there's still time to register. Then for public release so you can 

start actually publishing stories at 12:01 am Eastern Time. And then again the 

data will be available on our public American FactFinder site sometime in the 

morning on Thursday by 10:00 am. 
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 If do have any questions please do feel free to give our Public Information 

Office a call at 301-763-3030. Also for members of the public you could call 

our 1-800-923-8282 number. And again we invite you to follow us on Twitter 

@censusbureau and follow our hashtag #ACS. 

 So with that, that concludes today's webinar and feel free to check out our 

online Press Kit as well. 

 Thank you. 

Woman: Thank you all. 

Coordinator: This does conclude today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may 

disconnect at this time. 

END