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Census 2010
When Do the Census Results
Get Into Arbitron Data?
C ensus 2010 W h I te pA pe R #1
By Dan Estersohn, Senior Demographer,
Arbitron Inc.
The 2010 Census will be conducted in March
and April of 2010; it is a snapshot of the
American population by age, sex, race,
Hispanic origin, marital status, households and
relationships within households. This paper,
the first in a series of discussions of why the
Census is important to broadcasters, looks at
how data from the Census Bureau are used in
Arbitron’s audience data. Other papers in the
“Census 2010” series will cover:
What you can do to ensure that everyone is
•	
counted in the Census,
The American Community Survey and how it
•	
fits in with the Census and
How the Census Bureau measures African-
•	
Americans, Hispanics, Asians and other
groups.
Release of Census Counts
The first set of results (coming in December
2010) will be tallies of the total population by
state. This is the count that will determine how
many representatives each state will have in
the 113th Congress that will be elected in
November 2012. You can expect to see news
reports of this in December of this year.
Neither Arbitron nor our population vendor can
use these data for local estimates.
A second set of results will appear in late
February 2011 and March 2011. The data will
be population by race and Hispanic ethnicity
for Persons 0+ and for Persons 18+, without any
age or sex detail. The data will be released on
a state-by-state schedule and will be available
at a county level and down to the block level
(city block or equivalent). These data are
required by law for revising the boundaries of
legislative and voting districts.
Finally, complete age/sex counts will be
released on a state-by-state basis, down to the
block level, in the late spring and early sum-
mer of 2011. This last release will also include
the data on marital status and household
relationships.
how Census Data Are used
The U.S. Constitution specifies a Cens