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DSDR KB:

Q:  

Does the American Community Survey (ACS) have data for zip codes?

A:  

Not yet.

One of the major selling points for the ACS was to be able to have annual data for all levels of geography as opposed to the census, which only came out once a decade.

For geographies with small populations such as census tracts and zip codes, the annual data will always be 3-year or 5-year averages.

The ACS has only been in full production as of 2006, so the time-line for zip codes and census tracts is 2010.

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2007/acs07timeline.pdf

From that point on, there will be a 'new' five-year average in 2011, 2012, 2013, etc.

One should note, that the recommendation is to make comparisons of non-overlapping periods. Thus, one could compare 2010-2012 data with 2013-2015. However, if you do make comparisons, which include overlapping years, you need to make adjustments for this. See pages 11-15 in the following report for examples of how to do this:

http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Downloads/AccuracyoftheDataMYE.pdf

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