The Census Bureau recently discovered several small errors in the ACS Failed Edit Follow-up (FEFU) data collection instrument and processing system. In FEFU, households who have returned a mail form but whose data failed a completeness check are called to collect the missing data. This operation is designed to improve the final quality of mail-returned questionnaires. The errors occurred in late 2011 when changes were made to correct the issues noted in Errata Note 75. The errors had minimal impact on the published estimates. The affected households are spread throughout the United States, and we have no reason to believe that the errors had a notable impact on published estimates for any specific geographic area.

There are two types of small errors reported in this errata note. First, the wrong person was deleted for a small number of households reporting fewer household members during the FEFU interview than was reported on the household's mail return. Most interviewers were able to catch and correct this error when the final roster reconciliation was done in the interview. Second, during some FEFU interviews, the interviewer was not prompted to ask some of the questions regarding missing employment status, marital history, and home value on the household's mail return. Most interviewers were able to detect this error and account for it during the interview; however, it is possible that the error could result in more missing data for some items and lead to higher item allocation rates.

Based on the analysis of the impact of these errors and the risks associated with correcting them, there are no plans to correct the dataset and re-release the affected data products. Errors in the FEFU operation are now corrected.