Hi, Brian Which table did you use for poverty information? Most poverty related tables are not tabulated down to the block group level, but some of them are. For example, if you use Table B17010 Poverty Status In The Past 12 Months Of Families By Family Type By Presence Of Related Children Under 18 Years By Age Of Related Children, you should be able to get this down to the block group level. One trick which is really useful for me is to download the "lists and locations of all available tables". This table provids which tables are available down to the block group and where you can get it. This file can be downloaded from the box on the top right corner of this page. http://www.census.gov/acs/www/data_documentation/2009_5yr_data/ Enjoy! Liang Long Federal Highway Administration ________________________________________ From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] on behalf of Brian Chenault [bchenault(a)hrtpo.org] Sent: Friday, February 15, 2013 3:35 PM To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net Subject: [CTPP] ACS 5-year Estimates Hello, Brian Chenault from the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization here. We are trying to collect several pieces of data at the block group level using 2007-2011 ACS 5-year estimates. Using the Census’ Summary File Excel Retrieval Tool, we are able to retrieve basic population data at the block group level. However, data at the block group level is not provided for poverty, language spoken at home, etc. This appeared to be the case even when examining 2006-2010/2005-2009 5-year estimates. Has this information not been “filtered down” from the census tract level yet? How is one supposed to go about gathering this type of updated information at the block group level? Much appreciated, Brian [Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: TPO-Heartbeat-Logo-FINAL]<http://www.hrtpo.org/> Brian Chenault Community Outreach Planner Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization The Regional Building | 723 Woodlake Drive | Chesapeake, Virginia | 23320 bchenault@hrpdcva.gov<mailto:bchenault@hrpdcva.gov> | http://www.hrtpo.org<http://www.hrtpo.org/> | Phone: 757.420.8300 | Fax: 757.523.4881

Brian, Tell me something. Do you want to use these data for *individual* block groups or do you want to aggregate BGs to larger areas, such as TAZs? I hope you know that the sampling errors for single BG data are so high as to render the data absolutely useless. I think that's why you can't find the numbers. Patty Becker On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 3:35 PM, Brian Chenault &lt;bchenault(a)hrtpo.org&gt; wrote: -- Patricia C. (Patty) Becker APB Associates/Southeast Michigan Census Council (SEMCC) 28300 Franklin Rd, Southfield, MI 48034 office: 248-354-6520 home:248-355-2428 pbecker(a)umich.edu

Brian, I'm not sure if data from state to state is different, but here at NCDOT we have been using the tables you mentioned below for the 2006-2010 5-year estimates at the block group level (have not checked 2007 5 year estimates yet). The table we use for language spoken at home is: Table B16001 "Language Spoken at Home by Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over." For poverty, we use: Table S1701 "Poverty Status in the Past 12 months" and Table C17002 "Ratio of Income to Poverty Level in the Past 12 Months." And yes, they are found at the block group level (at least for the State of North Carolina). This was a major headache for us after the Census change in 2010 when trying to do socio-demographic analyses for our reports. Data Ferret and the Summary File Excel Retrieval Tool were not very user friendly and took quite a long time to use, so we ended up downloading all of the ACS 5-Year Estimate Data from the Census FTP site and then joining them with the 2010 Census geography boundaries in ArcGIS. This has made our lives so much easier trying to extract census data for certain geographies in our project areas. Hope this helps, Megan Cogburn, MCRP Community Planner | Human Environment Section NCDOT Project Development & Environmental Analysis e: mscogburn@ncdot.gov<mailto:mscogburn@ncdot.gov> p: (919) 707-6062 f: (919) 212-5785 From: Brian Chenault [mailto:bchenault@hrtpo.org] Sent: Friday, February 15, 2013 3:36 PM To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net Subject: [CTPP] ACS 5-year Estimates Hello, Brian Chenault from the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization here. We are trying to collect several pieces of data at the block group level using 2007-2011 ACS 5-year estimates. Using the Census' Summary File Excel Retrieval Tool, we are able to retrieve basic population data at the block group level. However, data at the block group level is not provided for poverty, language spoken at home, etc. This appeared to be the case even when examining 2006-2010/2005-2009 5-year estimates. Has this information not been "filtered down" from the census tract level yet? How is one supposed to go about gathering this type of updated information at the block group level? Much appreciated, Brian [Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: TPO-Heartbeat-Logo-FINAL]<http://www.hrtpo.org/> Brian Chenault Community Outreach Planner Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization The Regional Building | 723 Woodlake Drive | Chesapeake, Virginia | 23320 bchenault@hrpdcva.gov<mailto:bchenault@hrpdcva.gov> | http://www.hrtpo.org<http://www.hrtpo.org/> | Phone: 757.420.8300 | Fax: 757.523.4881 ________________________________ Email correspondence to and from this sender is subject to the N.C. Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.