December 6, 2012: The Census Bureau today released summary tabulations from the ACS for the combined five-year period from 2007 to 2011.
The ACS is based on completed interviews with almost 2 million housing units each year, and pooling a five-year period of survey responses provides sufficient sample to reliably generate statistics for areas with populations of less than 20,000 people, down to the census tract level.
This year, the five year estimates for the first time include statistics for ZIP Code tabulation areas, which are a close approximation of the U.S. Postal Service’s Zip code areas.
Five-year estimates are available for a variety of measures at the small area level, including (among others) income, employment, and education. Because the ACS did not begin collecting health insurance coverage data until 2008, 5-year estimates will not be available on this measure until next year.
ACS five-year estimates are available at American FactFinder.
To learn more about the summary tabulations for the 5-year ACS estimates—and to learn about how these compare to the 1- and 3-year estimates—access SHADAC Brief #32, “Understanding the 1-,3-, and 5-year ACS Estimates: Summary Tabulations and Public Use Files.”