Corrections

AreaProfile publishes numbers people may act on. When one is wrong, we want to know.

How reports are handled

1. Every report enters a review queue. Nothing changes automatically.
2. The reported figure is checked against the archived raw source response it came from.
3. If AreaProfile transformed the value wrongly, the transformation is fixed and everything derived from it is recalculated.
4. If the source itself is wrong, the value is flagged and the discrepancy is noted rather than silently overwritten.
5. If the figure is correct but presented confusingly, the presentation is changed.

What is not an error

A figure that looks out of date is often correct. The ACS five-year estimates describe a five-year window and are released roughly a year in arrears; climate normals cover 1991–2020. AreaProfile shows the period each figure covers precisely so that these are legible rather than mistaken for current readings. Similarly, a ZIP profile showing city-level labor data is labeled as such, because the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish for ZIP areas.

The log

No corrections have been recorded yet. That is a statement about how long this has been running, not a claim to be error-free — and it is published as an empty list rather than omitted, because a corrections policy with no log is a promise and a log is evidence. When the first one lands it appears here, with what was reported and what changed.

Report something

You can also email corrections@areaprofile.com. See also the methodology.