Census Bureau begins nationwide survey

The U.S. Census Bureau has started a monthly mailing of a new survey to 250,000 households across the nation.

The American Community Survey is replacing the decennial census long form as a way to provide decisionmakers, communities and businesses with current information about changing demographics.

Information provided by the ACS includes housing values, educational attainment, commute times and language spoken at home.

Each year, the Census Bureau will mail the mandatory survey to a rolling, random sample of about 3 million households throughout the country and Puerto Rico. About one in 40 households will participate in the survey each year. By comparison, one in six households received the Census 2000 long form.

The ACS is an improved way to allocate states' shares of more than $200 billion a year in federal and state funding currently allotted based on five-year-old census long-form data, according to the Census Bureau.

"For the first time, small communities will have timely and accurate information that will help leaders make better decisions about where to build and locate roads, schools and hospitals," Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon said in a statement.

In development and testing since 1996, the ACS currently produces data for areas with populations of 250,000 or more. This week's mail-out expands the survey from 1,239 counties to all of the nation's 3,142 counties, as well as Puerto Rico, American Indian reservations, Alaska native villages and Hawaiian homelands.

The Census Bureau will release data for areas with populations of 65,000 or more annually beginning in summer 2006. The bureau will eventually release tabulations based on rolling three-year averages annually for smaller areas.

For more information, visit the Census Bureau Web site atwww.census.gov.