2011 American Community Survey released

The American Community Survey (ACS) is an ongoing survey conducted by the US Census Bureau that provides data about people, families, housing, and the US economy every year.

The 2011 data was just released on September 20th. The regular US Census is conducted every 10 years and tries to count everyone. The ACS is done yearly, getting more detailed information from a sample of the population which can then be extrapolated to tell us something about the country as a whole. This year the sample size was 3.5 million addresses from the total population of 308.7 million people (according to the 2010 Census).

In this table, for example, you can find out information like how many households are headed by single fathers (2.3%); that elementary school students make up 39.5% of the US population enrolled in any kind of school from preschool to graduate school; that 84.8% of people didn't move within the last year; and 3.0% of people in the US have Polish ancestry.

There's a lot more information about income and health insurance, geography and race and ethnicity - you can explore it all with the American Fact Finder site. Also, these briefs about the 2011 ACS estimates are a helpful place to start. For example, you can learn more about the poverty rate in the US, which increased by 0.6% between 2010 and 2011 to a total of 15.9% of the US population.

Image: [American] Pie chart via Air Tran Magazine