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Tools of the Trade:
Workforce Data in the American Community Survey Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution requires that the federal government conduct an “enumeration” of all people living in the country once every ten years for the purpose of apportioning seats among the states in the House of Representatives. Originally, this work was done by a temporary Census Office to administer each count, but as the work became more complex, Congress established the U.S. Census Bureau in 1902 to operate on a permanent basis. As the need for all manner of data about our country grew, additional products were added to supplement the data that were collected from the once-adecade census. You might remember filling out your 2020 Census form, because we were all spending a lot more time at home during the first
wave of the covid-19 pandemic. As it turns out, there weren’t all that many questions to answer. The form only asked for name, sex, race, and ethnicity, along with one question on whether the respondent owned or rented their home. Whatever else we might want to know about the population of the United States has to come from some other source. Between 1970 and 2000, this was accomplished by sending a longer form with more questions to a subset of households. This was eliminated starting with the 2010 Census because something better came along: the American Community Survey, or ACS. Starting in 2005, the Census Bureau began administering the survey nationwide. The goal is to receive responses from about one percent of the population every year, which is more than
SC Department of Employment and Workforce Labor Market Information Division Columbia, South Carolina 29202
