Data Dictionary: ACS 2007 (3-Year Estimates)
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Data Source:U.S. Census Bureau
Table: C08128. Means of Transportation to Work By Class of Worker [30]
Universe: Universe: Workers 16 years and Over
Relevant Documentation:
Excerpt from: Social Explorer; U.S. Census Bureau; 2005-2007 American Community Survey 3-Year Summary File: Technical Documentation.
 
Means of Transportation to Work
The data on means of transportation to work were derived from answers to Question 25, which was asked of people who indicated in Question 23 that they worked at some time during the reference week. (See "Reference Week.") Means of transportation to work refers to the principal mode of travel or type of conveyance that the worker usually used to get from home to work during the reference week.
People who used different means of transportation on different days of the week were asked to specify the one they used most often, that is, the greatest number of days. People who used more than one means of transportation to get to work each day were asked to report the one used for the longest distance during the work trip. The category, "Car, truck, or van," includes workers using a car (including company cars but excluding taxicabs), a truck of one-ton capacity or less, or a van. The category, "Public transportation," includes workers who used a bus or trolley bus, streetcar or trolley car, subway or elevated, railroad, or ferryboat, even if each mode is not shown separately in the tabulation. "Carro público" is included in the public transportation category in Puerto Rico. The category, "Other means," includes workers who used a mode of travel that is not identified separately within the data distribution. The category, "Other means," may vary from table to table, depending on the amount of detail shown in a particular distribution. The means of transportation data for some areas may show workers using modes of public transportation that are not available in those areas (for example, subway or elevated riders in a metropolitan area where there is no subway or elevated service). This result is largely due to people who worked during the reference week at a location that was different from their usual place of work (such as people away from home on business in an area where subway service was available), and people who used more than one means of transportation each day but whose principal means was unavailable where they lived (for example, residents of nonmetropolitan areas who drove to the fringe of a metropolitan area, and took the commuter railroad most of the distance to work).
Limitation of the Data
Beginning in 2006, the group quarters (GQ) population is included in the ACS. Some types of GQ populations have means of transportation distributions that are very different from the household population. The inclusion of the GQ population could therefore have a noticeable impact on the means of transportation to work distribution. This is particularly true for areas with a substantial GQ population.
Question/Concept History
Beginning in 1999, the American Community Survey questions differ from the 1996-1998 questions only in the format of the skip instructions. Beginning in 2004, the category, "Public transportation" was tabulated to exclude workers who used taxicab as their means of transportation.
Excerpt from: Social Explorer; U.S. Census Bureau; 2005-2007 American Community Survey 3-Year Summary File: Technical Documentation.
 
Class of Worker
The data on class of worker were derived from answers to Question 35. The information on class of worker refers to the same job as a respondent's industry and occupation and categorizes people according to the type of ownership of the employing organization. The class of worker categories are defined as follows:
Private wage and salary workers
Includes people who worked for wages, salary, commission, tips, pay-in-kind, or piece rates for a private for-profit employer or a private not-for-profit, tax-exempt or charitable organization. Self-employed people whose business was incorporated are included with private wage and salary workers because they are paid employees of their own companies.
ACS tabulations present data separately for these subcategories: "Private for-profit wage and salary workers," "Private not-for-profit wage and salary workers," "Self-employed in own incorporated business workers," and "Own not incorporated business workers."
Government workers
Includes people who were employees of any local, state, or federal governmental unit, regardless of the activity of the particular agency. For ACS tabulations, the data are presented separately for the three levels of government.
Employees of foreign governments, the United Nations, or other formal international organizations controlled by governments were classified as "federal government workers."
The class of worker government categories includes all government workers, though government workers may work in different industries. For example, people who work in a public elementary or secondary school are coded as local government class of workers.

Self-employed in own not incorporated business workers
Includes people who worked for profit or fees in their own unincorporated business, profession, or trade, or who operated a farm.

Unpaid family workers
Includes people who worked without pay in a business or on a farm operated by a relative.
Following the coding operation, a computer edit and allocation process excludes all responses that should not be included in the universe, and evaluates the consistency of the remaining responses. The codes for the three questions (industry, occupation, and class of worker) are then checked to ensure they are valid and consistent with the other codes returned for that respondent. Occasionally respondents supplied industry, occupation, or class of worker descriptions that were not sufficiently specific for precise classification, or they did not report on these questions at all. Certain types of incomplete entries were corrected using theAlphabetical Index of Industries and Occupations .
If one or more of the three codes was blank after the edit, a code was assigned from a donor respondent who was a "similar" person based on questions such as age, sex, education, and weeks worked. If all of the labor force and income data were blank, all of these economic questions were assigned from a "similar" person who had provided all the necessary data.
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