The quality of rural population estimates from the American Community Survey

Abstract

The new American Community Survey (ACS) provides a unique and unprecedented opportunity to monitor changing community social and economic conditions in the U.S. between the decennial Censuses. In this paper, we provide a description of the ACS, and we evaluate ACS data quality for the 1996 rural test site -- Fulton County, Pennsylvania -- on the basis of response rates, allocation rates, and the comparability of ACS estimates of county population characteristics with the decennial census results and with local administrative records. Our analysis provides encouraging evidence that the ACS, when fully implemented, will provide high-quality data that allow public policy analysts, marketing firms, and social scientists to track rural and small area social and population changes during the post-censal period.