US Urban and Suburban Poverty Rates

Posted on January 20, 2010 by townsend

• Study: Poverty in Philadelphia suburbs up nearly 1%, By Alfred Lubrano, January 20, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Poverty increased nearly 1 percent in Philadelphia’s suburbs between 2000 and 2008, partly because of two recessions, according to a report being released today. Poverty in the suburbs reached a rate of 7.4 percent, compared with 24.1 percent within Philadelphia, according to the report by the Brookings Institution. Citywide poverty increased 1.2 percent between 2000 and 2008, the report showed. Nationwide, suburban poverty increased by 25 percent during that time frame, nearly five times the rate of urban poverty, according to the report…”
• Suburbia home to new poverty challenge, By Bill Zlatos, January 20, 2010, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “Poverty has crept into bedroom communities around Pittsburgh and across America. A report released today by the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution shows a 25 percent increase in poverty in suburbs — nearly five times the rate in cities. ‘It is disheartening, but not surprising,’ said Diana Bucco, president of The Forbes Funds, a Downtown-based group that assists human service agencies and researches nonprofit organizations. She said residents of older, middle-class communities are coping with flat incomes and rising costs of food, gas, utilities and housing…”
• More than one in four Columbia residents are living in poverty, By James Rosen, January 20, 2010, The State: “More than one of every four Columbia residents is now living in poverty, an increase of more than a quarter of impoverished people than a decade ago. Columbia has been hit harder than other cities in the Carolinas, but Charleston, Raleigh and urban centers are also home to a growing number of poor people. The new study by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think thank, looked at Census Bureau data for the country’s 95 largest urban areas, which the U.S. government calls Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The worst recession in two decades has sent family incomes plummeting in cities across the nation, from Hartford, Conn. – where two in five people live in poverty – to Youngstown, Ohio, and Detroit in the Midwest…”
• National suburban poverty blight skips county, By Rob Varnon, January 20, 2010, Danbury News Times: “A wall of wealth in the suburbs of Bridgeport and Stamford appears to have staved off the ravages of poverty sweeping through hinterlands in other states. The Brookings Institution says in a new report today that 9.5 percent of the suburban U.S. population lived below the poverty line in 2008, while suburban Fairfield County had a poverty rate of just 5 percent. ‘The suburban poor has held pretty steady’ in Fairfield County, said Brookings Senior Research Analyst Elizabeth Kneebone, the study’s lead author. The county has the second lowest suburban poverty rate in the nation…”