Starting with the 2019 data products, the Census Bureau will be eliminating the unweighted interview count tables B00001 and B00002 for the 1-year and 5-year products, as well as K200001 and K200002 for the 1-year Supplemental Estimates. These tables tallied the interviewed persons and housing units, respectively, for all published geographies as a general indicator of data quality. We will now consolidate all unweighted interview counts into the quality measures series (tables starting with B98 and K2098). The quality measure tables containing sample sizes and unweighted interview counts will continue to be published for nation, state, county and place in the 1-year and 5-year products and will be added to the 1-year Supplemental Estimates for the first time.

In addition, the Census Bureau will make two changes to those tables compared to 2018. The first is that we will no longer be rounding the sample size information that we provide in B98001 and B98002. The second change is that all unweighted interview counts will have noise added to enhance the privacy protections in place for the ACS data. For small geographies, this noise may have a more substantial impact than for larger areas. For those areas, the sample size which has no noise added may provide a more robust general indicator of data quality with respect to sampling error than the published interview count. Alternatively, computing a relative standard error (also known as the coefficient of variation) or a relative margin of error (the margin of error relative to the size of the estimate) for the characteristics of interest can be used to compare data quality across areas.

The table below summarizes the changes. Note that the new K2098 series of tables published in the 1-year Supplemental Estimates mirror the B98 tables published for the 1-year and 5-year products. B98003 and the corresponding K209803 will contain unweighted person interview counts analogous to the discontinued B00001 table but will be restricted to the geographies listed below.

For more information surrounding this change to the quality measure related tables, please visit the blog about ACS Updates on Disclosure Avoidance and Release Plans.