Do you provide any programs to help import American Community Survey (ACS) data into SAS?

Yes, the Census Bureau provides programs for users to load the ACS Summary File into a SAS dataset. Users must have SAS installed on their computer in order for the programs to work. These programs, along with an example of creating a table using SAS, are available on the ACS Summary File page.

This page provides:

• SAS programs that can be used to access and process the data, as well as instructions for using Excel to merge the geography file with a sample data table in the Table-Based ACS Summary File format.
• Downloadable SAS programs for each sequence per state, which can be used to convert each estimate and margin of error into SAS datasets with table stubs in the Sequence-Based ACS Summary File format.
• An example program containing SAS macros which access the geography, estimate, and margin or error data to create one table for all geographies from the ACS Summary File.

Segments of the SAS codes can be used to convert geography files into SAS datasets.

There are no SAS programs provided for the ACS PUMS files because PUMS data are distributed in SAS format. However, instructions for merging multiple PUMS files are available in our ACS PUMS Handbook.

To learn more, check out Using American Community Survey Data with Open-Source Software.