The joint steering committees (FSCPE, CIC, and SDC) all signed this letter on behalf of the respective networks to Director Groves in support of a statistical calculator to be incorporated into American FactFinder. The statistical calculator requirements were also forwarded to the Bureau with the letter.
A response was received from the Director indicating that the new AFF will be adding some functionality similar to the statistical calculator recommendations in 2012.
Daniel Sheres at the D.C. Office of Planning has compiled all the equations for calculating ACS statistics (margins of error, statistical significance, etc.) into the following spreadsheet:
Doug Hillmer has prepared the following presentation and documentation on the statistical calculator. This tool will allow users to calculator margins of error (MOE) to be used in conjunction with data products published from the American Community Survey.
Click here for the PowerPoint that was presented as a webinar on October 15, 2010 for APDU (Association of Public Data Users).
Click here to view the requirements documentation for the statistical calculator.
This calculator, updated 2/23/2009, from the New York Data Center allows users to produce the margins of error for the ACS when combining counts or proportions for a number of geographic areas. It also allows users to test significant differences between two estimates.
This spreadsheet from the Maryland Data Center allows you to input two values with either the margins of error or the confidence intervals (depending on which two you have available to you). The calculations are then performed based on the formula provided at the annual meeting in the Powerpoint presentation. It provides a “yes” or “no” answer to whether there is a statistically significant difference between the two estimates.
