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What is the ACS

What is the ACS?

Posted on Wednesday June 10, 2009

The American Community Survey (ACS) is a nationwide survey designed to provide communities a fresh look at how they are changing through critical economic, social, demographic and housing information. Every year the ACS will provide communities with the same kind of detailed information previously available only from the long form of the U.S. Census. It is sent to a small percentage of the population on a rotating basis throughout the decade. No household will receive the survey more often than once every five years.

In the past, all households received a short-form Census questionnaire, while one household in six received a long form that contained additional questions, including a question on ancestry. The 2010 Census will be a short-form only census and will count all residents living in the United States and will ask only 10 basic questions (name, sex, age, date of birth, race, Hispanic origin, family relationship and housing tenure). The ACS, which collects more socioeconomic and demographic information than the short-form Census questionnaire, will continue to ask a question on ancestry or ethnic origin.

For further information on the American Community Survey, please click here. For more information on how the 2010 Census will be different than past years, please click here.