Community corner: Working with American Community Survey data in Stata
The American Community Survey (ACS) provides population and housing data for the U.S. Typically, working with these data in Stata would require downloading the data in Excel or CSV format, importing them into Stata, and cleaning up the data using the information from the data dictionary. The authors of the getcensus package have streamlined this process into one step.
The getcensus package imports data from the ACS as a Stata dataset, complete with variable labels and notes that make the data easy to work with. With one command, you can simultaneously import the data as a Stata dataset and save them into an Excel spreadsheet. Whether you want to import a complete table, a list of specified variables, or a carefully chosen list of variables related to a keyword, the getcensus package makes it easy to do.
The getcensus package was created by Raheem Chaudhry and Vincent Palacios, and developed by Claire Zippel and Matt Saenz. For more information about this package, you can refer to the authors' online documentation. Additionally, you can check out Nari Yoo's guide for using getcensus.
