Data Sources & Methodology
We use U.S. Census Bureau APIs to power DemographyPro's stats. Required notice: This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.
Core datasets we pull
- ACS (American Community Survey) 1-year & 5-year: people, households, housing, income, education, commute; includes MOE (margin of error) at 90% CI (confidence interval).
- SAIPE (Small Area Income & Poverty Estimates): annual county/school-district poverty & income (model-based).
- SAHIE (Small Area Health Insurance Estimates): annual county/state health-insurance coverage (model-based).
- PEP (Population Estimates Program): annual population change & components (births, deaths, migration).
- CBP (County Business Patterns): establishments & employment by NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) at county/ZCTA (ZIP Code Tabulation Area).
- LEHD (Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics) LODES: job & commute flows for daytime population/trade areas.
- BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics): monthly unemployment rates and labor force statistics at county level.
- BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis): annual per capita personal income and economic indicators at county level.
- FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data): economic time series data including housing prices, mortgage rates, and regional economic indicators at state and metro area levels.
- CDC PLACES: health outcomes (obesity, diabetes, smoking, physical inactivity) for counties with 50,000+ population; coverage varies by county size.
Update cadence (typical)
- ACS (American Community Survey) 1-year: annually
- ACS (American Community Survey) 5-year: annually (rolling)
- SAIPE (Small Area Income & Poverty Estimates): annually
- SAHIE (Small Area Health Insurance Estimates): annually
- PEP (Population Estimates Program): annually
- CBP (County Business Patterns): annually
- LEHD (Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics) LODES: periodic releases
- BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics): monthly
- BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis): annually
- FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data): varies by series (daily to annually)
- CDC PLACES: annually
What to expect in charts
- Small-area stats often use ACS (American Community Survey) 5-year for stability.
- ACS (American Community Survey) values include MOE (margin of error); we surface ±MOE so you can judge reliability.
- SAIPE/SAHIE may differ slightly from ACS (American Community Survey) because they're model-based for small-area accuracy.