Why should you care? Because the American Community Survey is the source of all local area socioeconomic statistics. The ACS replaced the census long form, which once collected data on incomes, education, housing, migration, and so on. Today's release provides the 2010 socioeconomic data that complements the more general demographic statistics collected by the 2010 census. In the next few days, you will hear a lot about incomes, poverty, and housing in your state, county, city, and perhaps even your neighborhood as reporters pore over the voluminous findings.
Yes, the ACS sort of competes with the Current Population Survey--the official source of income statistics, whose 2010 data were released last week (see my reporting about those results here, here, and here). But the ACS has the local data. The CPS does not.
For an overview of what the ACS is revealing, see the article in USA Today, Recession Changes American Way of Life. Yours truly is quoted.
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