One Year ACS PUMA-Level Summaries Availability

Hello, I’m curious if NHGIS provides PUMA-level summaries for 1 year ACS / decennial data. I know I can download the corresponding microdata from IPUMS USA, but I need it for 2000, 2005-2019. Even for a modest set of variables, this means the data file is roughly 1 gigs compressed.

I looked around NHGIS, but it seems like only 5-year PUMA-level tables are available, am I mistaken?

Thanks!
Kelsey

Dear Kelsey,

NHGIS does have 1-year PUMA-level summaries for the ACS from 2010-2022 (the more recent 1-year ACS that’s been released). You can find these summaries in the 1-year ACS datasets, which can be found using the following steps:

  1. Open the DATASETS filter
  2. Click the AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY tab along the left hand side of the pop-up
  3. You’ll now see all the ACS datasets we have. Look for the YYYY_ACS1 datasets in the list.
  4. Click the check box next to the 1-year datasets you want
  5. Click the SUBMIT button to apply your selections
  6. Select the data tables you want

We don’t have the 1-year ACS summary files from 2005-2009. If you’re an R user, I believe Kyle Walker’s tidycensus package provides access to the 2005-2009 1-year ACS datasets via the Census Bureau’s API.

Sincerely,
Dave Van Riper

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Hi Dave,

Thank you for the clarification!

Kelsey

Dear Kelsey,

Happy to help!

I forgot to add one other thing to my initial message. The Census Bureau did not publish summary statistics for PUMAs in the 2000 Decennial Census. They only started publishing PUMA-level summary statistics when they rolled out the ACS. Thus, you would have to generate your own summary stats for the 2000 decennial.

Sincerely,
Dave

got it! Thanks for the extra tidbit.

I will keep this in mind.