Use of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) by State Departments of Transportation and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (2012) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Pages 8-21
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 8... ...
8 CHAPTER TWO OVERVIEW OF THE PUBLIC USE MICRODATA SAMPLE DATA DESCRIPTION OF PUBLIC USE MICRODATA SAMPLE DATA Most Census Bureau data products are summaries and tabulations of data collected from one of the Bureau's many largescale data collection efforts. For the Decennial Census and ACS, the Census Bureau provides single-variable tables at different prespecified geographic levels, and makes them available on the American FactFinder website (http://factfinder.census.gov)
|
From page 9... ...
9 ACS data, on a record-by-record basis, are likely to be more accurate because the continuous data collection program enables better quality control and maintenance procedures to be enacted. These improvements are two of the important reasons one would expect different results between the data collection efforts (Cambridge Systematics et al.
|
From page 10... ...
10 acteristics (e.g., means of transportation to work, school enrollment, time leaving for work) change throughout the year, the surveys will measure different things.
|
From page 11... ...
11 TABLE 2 HOUSEHOLD-BASED SUBJECTS INCLUDED IN CENSUS PUBLIC USE MICRODATA SAMPLE FILES 2000 PUMS (1 percent and 5 percent samples) 2004–2008 ACS PUMS and Multiyear PUMS Containing Those Years 2009–?
|
From page 12... ...
12 Disclosure Avoidance Because the microdata represent complete records of actual individual Census data responses, and the Census Bureau is required by law to protect the confidentiality of respondents, the Census Bureau must take several precautions to preserve data confidentiality when publishing PUMS data (U.S. Census Bureau 2009a)
|
From page 13... ...
13 The Census Bureau provides guidance on how users can calculate generalized standard errors, and also provides replicate weights for calculations of direct standard errors as part of its "PUMS Accuracy" report series: http://www.census. gov/acs/www/data_documentation/pums_documentation/.
|
From page 14... ...
14 bers for PUMAs whose geographic boundaries are the same or similar to previous boundaries. The most significant change for the 2010 PUMA delineation is the elimination of Census Place and MCD as building blocks for PUMAs.
|
From page 15... ...
15 Because the PUMA delineation criteria and population patterns have changed over the past decade, it is expected that the 2010 PUMAs will be significantly different from the 2000 PUMAs (L. Gaines, personal communication, July 2011)
|
From page 16... ...
16 corresponds to a work commute destination, but for respondents who travel for work, the POW-PUMA may represent a temporary workplace, which may be quite distant from the respondents' home locations. POW-PUMAs are most often county based, but can also be defined to the place level or MCD (in the six New England states)
|
From page 18... ...
18 As Figures 6 and 7 show, DataFerrett users can specify PUMS-based tables and variables using point-and-click selections and drop-down lists. Once the user completes the selection, DataFerrett will provide tabulations such as the one shown in Figure 8.
|
From page 19... ...
19 FIGURE 7 DataFerrett PUMS variable definition. Source: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/ data_documentation/data_ferrett_for_pums/.
|
From page 20... ...
20 In addition to the Census website sources, affiliate organizations of the Census SDCs provide access to PUMS data and to value-added analysis tools. One of these organizations, the Minnesota Population Center, has developed IPUMS, which combines surviving Decennial Census data from as far back as 1850 and all available ACS PUMS databases (http://usa.ipums.org/usa/)
|
From page 21... ...
21 In one side-by-side comparison, a transportation planner who was new to the use of PUMS data found that obtaining data through IPUMS was preferable to obtaining the data directly from the Census Bureau (Azimi 2005)
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.