Also, a population threshold of 2,000,000 will not provide data for any of our metro areas, not even our largest, Philadelphia. More than 500 languages are spoken by the very large immigrant population in Chicago. Any limitations will make it extremely difficult to track changes in these groups. Occupation and industry limitations diminish the capability of tracking labor force characteristics which is important to businesses interested in expanding operations or moving to a different location. We have used the 1990 PUMS extensively to study health insurance and the poor.
Data stratified by race, ethnicity, occupation, and income are essential.
The 2,000,000 cutoff is unacceptable for most states and I suspect even for states like California and New York. The diverse populations throughout Florida demand as much detail as possible for race, language spoken, ancestry, and other variables. Our emergency management authority needs all possible language detail. Our users often study specific ethnic, racial, or ancestry groups for fairly specific areas, certainly smaller than 2,000,000 population. Our users need the detail for groups of people and areas otherwise PUMS is not helpful.