Pulling from multiple source tables with get_acs() causes erroneous NAs

[jacksonvoelkel]

When pulling variables from multiple data source tables with get_acs(), I've noticed inconsistent behavior:

First, we can pull a list of variables from the same table ("DP") without issue:

library(tidycensus) # v1.6.3
library(dplyr) # v1.1.4

# Pulling from the same data source ---------------------------------------

# All "DP" variables
vars_dp <- c("DP04_0001", "DP02_0001")

acs_from_list_same_table <- get_acs(
  geography = "tract", 
  variables = vars_dp, 
  year = 2010,
  state = c("AL", "NY", "CA"),
  output = "wide",
  cache = FALSE) %>% 
  bind_rows()

table(is.na(acs_from_list_same_table$DP04_0001E))

This has zero NA values in the variable DP04_0001E for the states I have pulled it for.

Next, I try to add in a variable from a different table ("S"):

# Pulling from different source tables ------------------------------------

# A mix of "DP" and "S" variables
vars_dps <- c("DP04_0001", "S0601_C01_001")

acs_from_list_different_table <- get_acs(
  geography = "tract", 
  variables = vars_dps, 
  year = 2010,
  state = c("AL", "NY", "CA"),
  output = "wide",
  cache = FALSE) %>% 
  bind_rows()

table(is.na(acs_from_list_different_table$DP04_0001E))

As can be seen, we now have many NA values in variable DP04_0001E.

When comparing the two, I see that the values pulled are the same where the "multiple source table" is not NA:

# Comparing ---------------------------------------------------------------

joined_data <- left_join(x = acs_from_list_same_table,
                         y = acs_from_list_different_table, 
                         by = "GEOID") %>% 
  select(starts_with("DP04"))

# In instances where "multiple data source" values were not NA, they match the
#  "pulled from a single data source" version's values. 
joined_data %>% 
  print(n = 10)

joined_data %>% 
  filter(complete.cases(.)) %>% 
  print(n = 10)

This was working fine a couple of months ago, but unfortunately I don't have a record of the previous tidycensus version I used.

[resistor4u]

Are some values returning -888888888? I'm not able to see the API call results to check.