Questions:
1) Will the Census Bureau be developing
and releasing a 2019 (yes, 2019) Public Use Microdata Sample
(PUMS) using Experimental Weights?
I’m not sure this is a simple-to-answer question,
but it bears asking.
The Census Bureau released (November 30, 2021) the
Year 2020 ACS PUMS using Experimental Weights. And the iPUMS
site just this week (1/25/22) launched the 2020 ACS PUMS-X on
their wonderful/amazing website!
Also on 11/30/21, the Bureau released the 54 tables
that will be the sum total of regular tables on the 2020 ACS.
There will be NO 2020 single-year estimates available either on
data.census.gov or
through the API (application programming interface, like the
R-package tidycensus.) These 54 tables are only available at the
national and state level. Region, county and large place level
data will (apparently) not be released for these 54 tables.
I also read the working paper by Census Bureau
staff: "Addressing
Nonresponse Bias in the American Community Survey
During the Pandemic Using Administrative Data”
The Rothbaum working paper goes into incredible
detail on the need to replace the traditional weights used in
the ACS with experimental weights / new weights / “entropy
balance weights” / “experimental entropy balance weights” / ACS
experimental weights. The paper shows a lot of comparisons
between older ACS data, typically 2009 to 2019, and ACS-X data
with the experimental weights, for 2019 and 2020. Yes, the
Census Bureau has implemented the experimental weighting
procedure for 2019.
The Bureau is pretty clear about data users
NOT comparing the ACS 2005-2019 using the “standard
weights” with the ACS 2020 using the experimental weights.
Well, at least that’s their advice/admonition/plea.
Year 2020 data is incomparable. It’s like 61*
(Maris) versus 60 (Ruth).
I think we need ACS-X data (ACS with
Experimental Weights) for multiple years in order to make
some sense out of this bedlam: 2019, 2020 and 2021.
There’s obviously a major time and cost with creating
these data, but it will be worth the investment.
A followup question is:
2) Will the five-year 2016-2020
data, tentatively scheduled for release March 20, 2022
(plus or minus weeks?) be weighted using ACS standard
weights? ACS experiment weights? A hybrid?
I scoured the Census Bureaus’ website, read
the transcript from the 11/30/21 webinar, scoured the
state data center and ACS data community websites, and
couldn’t find answers.
Help?
Chuck Purvis
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