Census Data on Mobility

Posted on October 27, 2011 by townsend

• Many who started in middle class find lifestyle slipping away, By Aldo Svaldi, October 23, 2011, Denver Post: “Joanne Spillman, 50, grew up in a large home in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood, never wanting for anything, and never anticipating she would achieve anything less in her life. ‘We were middle class, and our needs were met,’ Spillman said. ‘I always figured I would grow up and live the same lifestyle.’ But Spillman has struggled her whole adult life to reach the standard of living she once knew, a struggle that the recession and weak recovery have made much tougher. Nearly three out of 10 Americans, 28 percent, born in the middle class drop out of it as adults, according to a recent study on economic mobility from The Pew Charitable Trusts. The study defines middle class as those families making between $32,900 and $64,000 in 2010 dollars, which ranks between the 30th and 70th percentiles of income. The 30th percentile was used as a cut-off point because it is where families typically stop relying on government support to get by, said Erin Currier, project manager for Pew’s Economic Mobility Project…”
• Census: Share of Americans on the move falls to record low amid long-term housing and job woes, Associated Press, October 26, 2011, Washington Post: “Yet another symptom of the economic downturn: Americans aren’t moving. Young adults are staying put, often with their parents. Older people aren’t able to retire to beachfront or lakeside homes. U.S. mobility is at its lowest point since World War II. New information from the Census Bureau highlights the continuing impact of the housing bust and unemployment on U.S. migration, after earlier signs that mobility was back on the upswing. It’s a shift from America’s long-standing cultural image of ever-changing frontiers, dating to the westward migration of the 1800s and more recently in the spreading out of whites, blacks and Hispanics in the Sun Belt’s housing boom. Rather than housing magnets such as Arizona, Florida and Nevada, it is now more traditional, densely populated states – California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey – that are showing some of the biggest population gains in the recent economic slump, according to the data released Thursday…”