Differences in various federal government surveys and programs dealing with employment and unemployment statistics.

How Many Americans?

By Steven A. Camarota
Tuesday, September 2, 2008; A15

When the Census Bureau released its new population projections last month, most of the media focused on the country's changing racial composition. But this was almost certainly not the most important finding. The projections show that the U.S. population will grow by 135 million in just 42 years -- a 44 percent increase. Such growth would have profound implications for our environment and quality of life. Most of the increase would be a direct result of one federal policy -- immigration. If we reduced the level of immigration, the projections would be much lower. The question we have to ask ourselves is: Do we want to be a much more densely settled country?

Native-born Americans have only about two children on average, which makes for a roughly stable population over time. But with an estimated 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants settling in the country each year, and about 900,000 births to these immigrants each year, immigration directly and indirectly accounts for at least three-fourths of U.S. population growth.

An increase of 135 million people by 2050 is equivalent to the entire populations of Mexico and Canada moving here. Assuming the same ratio of population to infrastructure that exists today, the United States would need to build and pay for 36,000 schools. We would need to develop enough land to accommodate 52 million new housing units, along with places for the people who lived in them to shop and work. We would also have to construct enough roads to handle 106 million more vehicles.

Census Atlas of the United States

* Census 2000 Reports

We are pleased to present the complete content, in PDF format, of the recently published Census Atlas of the United States, the first comprehensive atlas of population and housing produced by the Census Bureau since the 1920s. The Census Atlas is a large-format publication about 300 pages long and containing almost 800 maps. Data from decennial censuses prior to 2000 support nearly 150 maps and figures, providing context and an historical perspective for many of the topics presented. A variety of topics are covered in the Census Atlas, ranging from language and ancestry characteristics to housing patterns and the geographic distribution of the population. A majority of the maps in the Census Atlas present data at the county level, but data also are sometimes mapped by state, census tract (for largest cities and metropolitan areas), and for selected American Indian reservations. The book is modern, colorful, and includes a variety of map styles and data symbolization techniques.

Seeing The Numbers: NYC

We continue our series with Marc Perry, Chief of the Population Distribution Branch at the U.S. Census, on the new Census Atlas of the United States. This week, we look at some of the NYC-specific maps:

Also, Andrew Beveridge, Professor of Sociology for Social Explorer and chair of the Sociology department at Queens College, helps us flesh out what those maps tell us about New York.

Seeing The Numbers: Origins and Diversity

Each Thursday in June, we are taking a look inside the new Census Atlas of the United States, the first of its kind in almost 100 years. Marc Perry, Chief of the Population Distribution Branch at the Census, helps guide us through some of the maps and trends. Today we look at the changing face of America and an interesting definition of "ancestry."

Seeing The Numbers Each Thursday in June, we take a look inside the new Census Atlas of the United States, the first of its kind in almost 100 years. Marc Perry, Chief of the Population Distribution Branch at the Census, helps guide us through some of the maps and trends.

Shapefiles and data at the census tract, county, state, and other geographic levels going back to 1790 for counties, and 1910 for tracts. Also includes some data for downloading.

These are slides from the 4 day "Understanding Federal Statistics" workshop held in May 2008. They are a good starting point for learning about Federal Data Sources.

Seeing The Numbers

Each Thursday in June, we take a look inside the new Census Atlas of the United States, the first of its kind in almost 100 years. Marc Perry, Chief of the Population Distribution Branch at the Census, helps guide us through some of the maps and trends.

History of manufactures in the United States : 1607-1860

by Victor S Clark

Available Topics Include:
*Economic
-- Industry wages
-- Top industries
-- Top occupation groups
-- Labor force by age
-- Education Levels

*Demographic
-- Income
-- Population Pyramid
-- School Enrollment
*Economic
-- Industry wages
-- Top industries
-- Top occupation groups
-- Labor force by age
-- Education Levels

*Demographic
-- Income
-- Population Pyramid
-- School Enrollment

*Housing
-- Mortgage Averages
-- Occupancy Status
-- Ownership Rates
-- Housing Costs

*Transportation
-- Commute Times
-- Means of Transportation

*Community Assets
-- Public Schools
-- Colleges and Universities

Methodology and Assumptions for the Population
Projections of the United States:
1999 to 2100
_________________________________________________________
Population Division Working Paper No. 38

Frederick W. Hollmann,
Tammany J. Mulder,
and Jeffrey E. Kallan
Population Projections Branch
Population Division
U.S. Census Bureau
Department of Commerce
Washington, D.C. 20233
(301) 457-2428
www.census.gov
Issued January 13, 2000

ABSTRACT
This working paper discusses the methodology and assumptions used to develop the recently released
projections of the population of the United States from 1999 to 2100. The new series includes projections
of the population by single year of age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, and nativity. While the basic
methodology used to produce these projections is the same as in earlier Census Bureau national population
projections, there have been changes, in both the time horizon and reference dates of the projections, as well
as in the specific methods used to estimate population change. The extension of the series to 2100 carries
the projections 20 years further into the future than any series previously issued by the Census Bureau.
For the first time, projection results include a break on nativity, defined dichotomously by the presence or
absence of U.S. citizenship at birth, as well as its cross-classification with other variables. Also new with
this series is the projection to quarterly reference dates, allowing users to view the national population
seasonally, or simply to select annual reference dates other than July 1. In addition, international migration
in the new series is allowed to vary over time, remaining somewhat lower than the constant value in the
previous series for the first two decades of the century, but reaching considerably higher levels than in the
previous one after 2020. Fertility rates in both models are allowed to change very little over time.
However, fertility rates by race and Hispanic origin are allowed to converge in the new middle series,
whereas in the previous middle series they remained constant within race and origin category. Finally, the
new mortality assumptions show more improvement in life expectancy for all racial and Hispanic origin
groups, except the non-Hispanic White population, than did the assumptions of the previous projection
series.

Disclosure and Utility of Census Journey-to-Work Flow Data from the American Community Survey
Is There a Right Balance?

by

Ed Christopher
FHWA Resource Center

Nandu Srinivasan
Cambridge Systematics Inc.

This paper was developed to augment the display poster prepared for the Conference on Census Data for Transportation Planning: Preparing for the Future. The opinions and views expressed in this document and subsequent poster represent those of the authors (and those who have influenced them) but should not be considered the views, policy positions or in no way be attributed to the organizations for which they work or have any affiliations.

Irvine, California
May 11 to 13, 2005
Abstract

Early in 2003 the transportation community contracted with the Census Bureau to produce the CTPP2000, a special tabulation. A special tabulation is made up of user defined tables and falls outside the "standard" products distributed by the Census Bureau like SF1, SF3, and PUMS. With the 2000 decennial data, the Census Bureau required all special tabulations to have disclosure avoidance techniques applied to them. For CTPP2000 this meant the institution of rounding and threshold techniques in addition to the already applied procedures of data swapping and imputation.

The specific disclosure rules for the American Community Survey after 5 years of data collection are likely to be similar, if not stricter than to those used for CTPP2000. In this paper the effects of rounding and thresholds on the CTPP will be exposed along with an examination of their effects under the American Community Survey. CTPP2000, ACS, 1990 CTPP and the NCHRP 8-48 data sets are used in this analysis.

We show how the rounding rules cause an undercount in the published datasets. The rounding rules for CTPP2000 could have worked better had the underlying data been more closely examined for the frequency of occurrence of cell values before the rounding decision was made. Finally, we show that a minor tweaking of the rules could have produced a more consistent dataset.

As for thresholds, they will always cause severe data loss even at a medium level of geographic aggregation, let alone for small geography. Compounding the severe data loss, consider that the number of observations in a 5 year accumulated ACS will be at least 25 percent smaller than those collected from the decennial census.

Same sex and unmarried partner household data are collected for those households where the householder and his or her partner are not married, but are living in a close personal relationship. An unmarried partner can be of the same sex or opposite sex of the householder.

An unmarried partner, in an unmarried partner household, is an adult who is unrelated to the householder, but shares living quarters and has a close personal relationship with the householder. This relationship is based on the self-identification of respondents.

Here are some sources for your use:

• The American FactFinder contains two sources:
•  
  • American Community Survey   Table B11009, shows "Unmarried Partner Households by Sex of Partner."
  • Census 2000, Summary File (SF) 1 Table PCT14, "Unmarried Partner Households by Sex of Partner" is available for the nation, state, metropolitan statistical area, city/place, county, and various other geographies.
  • Additionally, same-sex unmarried partner household data were collected in the 1990 Census. The Technical Note on Same-Sex Unmarried Partner Data From the 1990 and 2000 Censuses provides guidance on comparing these data.
• The Census 2000 special reports include:
  • Married-Couple and Unmarried Partner Households: 2000 and
  • Population and Housing Table, PHC-T-19, Hispanic Origin and Race of Coupled Households provides race and gender for unmarried partner households for the U.S.
• The Census Bureau also collects data for same sex and unmarried partner households in ongoing survey programs, but does not regularly produce tabulations on this topic. For more information and special studies on the subjects of same gender couples and unmarried partner households based on the Census Bureau's survey programs, visit the Population Division Working Papers:
•  
  • No. 34, Unbinding the Ties: Edit Effects of Marital Status on Same Gender Couples.
  • No. 35, Racial-Ethnic and Gender Differences in Returns to Cohabitation and Marriage: Evidence for the Current Population Survey.
  • No. 36, How Does POSSLQ Measure Up? Historical Estimates of Cohabitation.

address search - information w/ geographical identifiers for a specific place. 

state, county, county subdivision, census tract, block group, block, and many many more

Americans' average commute to work got shorter by 0.4 minutes from 2000 to 2005. Here are the 25 metropolitan areas with the longest commutes to work. Commutes are in average minutes, one way:

...

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Thursday, August 31st, 2006

If you think it's taking longer than ever to get to work, you're right.
The Census Bureau says New York City now has the second-longest commute in the nation - 34.2 minutes - a slight increase over the past five years and only a little better than Baltimore.
The average commute for the rest of the country is 25.5 minutes - a 24-second drop since 2005.

From page 247-248

TECHNICAL NOTE ON SAME-SEX UNMARRIED PARTNER DATA FROM THE 1990 AND 2000 CENSUSES

...In 1990, the edit and allocation procedures did not allow same-sex “spouse” combinations to occur, thus resulting in the allocation of one of these two items in order to achieve editing consistency among the responses.

...Processing steps were changed for Census 2000 for households that contained same-sex “spouses.” If the person with the “spouse” category was the same sex as the householder and if neither person had their sex previously allocated, a relationship response of “spouse” was allocated as an “unmarried partner” response.

...Two principal factors affected our decision to take this approach for Census 2000.

1.      Marriage Act (H.R. 3396) passed by the 104th Congress. This act instructs all federal agencies only to recognize opposite-sex marriages for the purposes of enacting any agency programs. In order for Census Bureau data to be consistent with this act and the data requirements of other federal agencies, same-sex spouse responses were invalidated. The legislation defines marriage and spouse as follows:

 “In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word ’marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ’spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.” In order for the Census Bureau to be consistent with this act and the data requirements of other federal agencies, same-sex “spouse” responses were invalidated.

2.      The second factor took into consideration that couples in long term same-sex relationships may consider themselves as “married partners” and thus respond as such on the census form.  In addition, at the time of writing the editing program for Census 2000, there were several challenges in the courts concerning the legality of same-sex marriages. Clearly, we could not ignore the fact that same-sex spouse responses were going to be recorded during Census 2000. In light of these social and legal aspects and the lack of a key variable in the statistical allocation routine (marital status) the assignment of same-sex “married” couples to the same-sex “unmarried partner” category was the procedure chosen for the editing process. We were adverse to a randomized allocation of these responses after people had clearly marked a close relationship preference on the census form.

As a result of these changes in the processing routine, estimates of same-sex unmarried partners are not comparable between the 1990 and 2000 census.

article about changing new york metro area demographics, not shocking.

quotes Andrew Beveridge at CUNY queens, a demographer.  he also runs the social explorer project
- which is an very well done census explorer.
http://www.socialexplorer.com/pub/home/home.aspx