US Census
The US Census Bureau runs the American Community Survey, a yearly survey of population, income and housing in the United States. Through ScholarMuse, an agent can pick from eight common ACS 1-year measures with find_series, or fetch any ACS 1-year detailed-table variable with get_series, as a yearly series for the whole country or for one state.
ScholarMuse tools: find_series, get_series. Each successful call uses credits.
Ask your agent
What your agent gets back
Every record carries id, source, title, url, license, attribution and retrievedAt. The fields below are the data that comes from US Census.
find_series
Searches a fixed list of 8 ACS 1-year variables kept in the connector, not the Census Bureau's full catalogue. Census is skipped when the query names a country other than the US.
- seriesId
- e.g. census:acs1/B19013_001E
- title
- Measure name from the built-in list
- frequency
- Always Annual
- units
- Units, e.g. Persons or US dollars per month
- geography
- United States, with a hint on adding a state
- coverageStart
- First survey year, 2005
get_series
For a variable outside the built-in list, the title is just the variable code and units are missing.
- seriesId
- Variable id, with ?state=NN when a state was asked
- title
- Measure name, when the variable is in the list
- units
- Units, when the variable is in the list
- frequency
- Annual
- geography
- Area name from the Census API, e.g. United States or California
- start
- First survey year returned
- end
- Last survey year returned
- count
- Number of years returned
- observations
- List of year and value pairs
What it covers
- American Community Survey 1-year estimates only, from survey year 2005 to the latest year the Census Bureau has released (2024 when checked on 13 October 2026).
- find_series knows 8 measures: total population, median age, median household income, per capita income, population below the poverty level, median gross rent, median home value and total housing units.
- Geography is the United States as a whole, or one state when you add ?state= with a two-digit FIPS code, for example ?state=06 for California.
- get_series also accepts other ACS 1-year detailed-table variables written as acs1/<variable>, for example acs1/B08303_001E. A variable that was added to the survey later starts in its first year.
Limits
- No decennial census, ACS 5-year, population estimates or economic census data. Counties, cities, tracts and metro areas are not available.
- 2020 is always missing, because the Census Bureau did not release standard ACS 1-year estimates for that year.
- Only the estimate is returned. Margins of error are not included, and values the Census Bureau codes as not available are dropped.
- Dollar amounts are in the dollars of each survey year, so they are not adjusted for inflation across years.
How ScholarMuse reaches US Census
The connector calls the Census Bureau Data API directly, one request per survey year to /data/{year}/acs/acs1, using ScholarMuse's own Census API key. The Census API no longer answers requests without a key, so get_series returns an error for this source when no key is configured.
Each year's response is cached for up to 30 days, so a revised estimate can take that long to appear.
API key: the upstream API needs one; ScholarMuse uses its own, so you do not add one.
Licence and attribution
Licence: Public domain (US Government work)
Source: US Census Bureau (census.gov). This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.
Records that come from US Census carry this licence and attribution. When you cite the data in a paper, follow US Census's own citation guidance.
