The American Community Survey, an ongoing survey that the Census administers to millions per year, provides detailed information about how Americans live now and decades ago. There are tons of data tables on topics such as housing situations, education, and commute. The natural thing to do is to download the data, take it at face value, and carry on with your analysis or visualization.
However, as is usually the case with data, there’s more to it than that. Paul Overberg, a database editor at USA Today, explains in a practical guide on how to get the most out of the survey data (which can be generalized to other survey results).