Report places New Orleans’ homeless rate at second in the nation, By Katy Reckdahl, February 5, 2012, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “With a homeless population estimated at almost 6,700, the New Orleans metro area has the second-highest rate of homelessness in the nation. So says a new report from the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The report, which focused on the years 2009 to 2011, found the national rate of homelessness was 21 per 10,000 residents in 2011. New Orleans’ rate was nearly three times the national average, at 56 per 10,000, barely lower than Tampa, Fla., which ranked highest with 57…”

Homeless families, cloaked in normality, By Alan Feuer, February 3, 2012, New York Times: “On the sixth day she was homeless, Tonya Lewis overslept. She woke in the dark, in Room 6E at the 93rd Avenue Family Residence, a privately run shelter in Jamaica, Queens. It was 4:45 a.m. She was already running late. Rousting her children - Unique, 15, and Jacaery, 2 - from their beds, Ms. Lewis got them dressed and started shoving DVDs and diapers into two bulging tote bags. When the boys were ready - sleepy, sullen, hoodied, backpacked, in hats and winter jackets - she pushed them out the door (’Come on, we gotta go!’) to begin their daily routine…”

Grass-roots efforts aim to pull people out of poverty, By Dave Aeikens, December 21, 2011, USA Today: “In one of this city’s poorest neighborhoods, Jerry Sparby is among those trying to help people pull themselves out of poverty and help their children do better in school. Sparby and a group of volunteers have launched a local version of Promise Neighborhood, a growing national program aimed at connecting struggling families with the services they need, from job training to car repairs. If people start to understand the importance of relationships, I honestly think we can turn this community around,’ says Sparby, a professor at St. Cloud State University and retired school administrator in nearby Cold Spring, Minn. Promise Neighborhood programs are popping up across the country in mostly urban areas that have high poverty and low student success…”

• Income gap stays wide in District, narrows in suburbs, By Carol Morello and Ted Mellnik, December 7, 2011, Washington Post: “The income gap between whites and blacks living in the District is one of the widest in the country, new census statistics show. That stands in stark contrast to the Washington suburbs, where the gaps have become some of the nation’s narrowest. The per capita income for whites in the District is more than triple what it is for blacks, and the difference has only widened since 1990. In several suburbs, including Prince George’s, Loudoun and Stafford counties, incomes for blacks and whites are closer than ever, and today whites earn $1.30 or less for every $1 that blacks earn. Demographers and city activists say the difference reflects four decades of upper- and middle-class blacks abandoning the city for the suburbs, coupled with a more recent resurgence of affluent whites moving to the District. Some speak of the city’s middle class as a vanishing phenomenon, propelled in part by rising housing prices…”
• Census: Widening income gap as blacks leave cities, By Hope Yen (AP), December 8, 2011, Detroit News: “Affluent black Americans who are leaving industrial cities for the suburbs and the South are shifting traditional lines between rich and poor, according to new census data. Their migration is widening the income gap between whites and the inner-city blacks who remain behind, while making blacks less monolithic as a group and subject to greater income disparities. ‘Reverse migration is changing the South and its race relations,’ said Roderick Harrison, a Howard University sociologist and former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau. He said a rising black middle class is promoting a growing belief among some black conservatives that problems of the disadvantaged are now rooted more in character or cultural problems, rather than race. But Harrison said most black Americans maintain a strong racial identity, focused on redressing perceived lack of opportunities, in part because many of them maintain close ties to siblings or other blacks who are less successful…”

• Students in big-city schools show gains in latest NAEP ‘report card’, By Amanda Paulson, December 7, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Students in America’s largest cities are making gains in math, in many cases faster than students in the nation as a whole. Reading scores in those large cities - just as in the nation - have largely remained flat for the past two years. And in some cities - including Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, and Houston - students have made particularly striking gains over the past eight years, while in other cities progress has lagged…”
• D.C. schools have largest black-white achievement gap in federal study, By Lyndsey Layton, December 7, 2011, Washington Post: “D.C. public schools have the largest achievement gap between black and white students among the nation’s major urban school systems, a distinction laid bare in a federal study released Wednesday. The District also has the widest achievement gap between white and Hispanic students, the study found, compared with results from other large systems and the national average. The study is based on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, federal reading and math exams taken this year by fourth- and eighth-graders across the country…”
• DPS ratings on national report card rise, but still among worst big cities in reading, math, By Chastity Pratt Dawsey, December 7, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “The Detroit Public Schools scores on the Nation’s Report Card have inched up, but the district continues to rank worst among large cities in reading and math, results released today show. DPS fourth- and eighth-grade students were among those in 21 cities that took the rigorous National Assessment of Educational Progress tests this year as part of the Trial Urban District Assessment…”
• Some New York City scores drop in U.S. student tests, By Winnie Hu, December 7, 2011, New York Times: “New York City students scored slightly lower on federal math tests this year compared with 2009, according to scores released Wednesday morning, even as scores of their counterparts in other big cities inched upward. The results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation’s report card, showed that the city’s fourth-grade math average dropped 3 points to 234 (on a scale of 500) from 2009, the last time the exams were taken. While federal education officials cautioned that the changes were too small to be significant, that dip diverged from the trend nationally and for other large cities. In 2011, the average fourth-grade math score rose by one point nationally, and two points for cities with populations of 250,000 or more…”
• Baltimore students remain in bottom third on test vs. other cities, By Liz Bowie, December 7, 2011, Baltimore Sun: “Baltimore’s scores on a rigorous national math and reading test were in the bottom third of other large urban school districts across the country, though students showed some progress in math. The scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress were released Wednesday morning at a press conference at City Springs Elementary and Middle School in Baltimore…”

• Poverty rate growing in N.J.’s working-class towns, census data shows, By Stephen Stirling and Eric Sagara, November 3, 2011, Star-Ledger: “Danny Bryant has lived in solidly blue-collar Carteret for 46 of his 47 years. During that time, just about everybody worked. Jobs weren’t glamorous, but they put food on the table. The houses were modest, tidy and well-kept. Now Bryant, a former pool supply worker, survives on the $600 his girlfriend brings home every other week from her fast-food job and $200 a month in food stamps after being laid off last year. And his section of Carteret is not the town it used to be. There are a lot of Danny Bryants there now. ‘If you live here and are poverty stricken, it’s hard to get help,’ Bryant said. ‘There’s a big line between being middle class and being poor. Everybody is struggling.’ More than one in four of the residents in Bryant’s neighborhood in the Middlesex County borough now live below the poverty line. A study released today by the Brookings Institution shows the poverty rate in New Jersey’s working-class communities like Carteret, Union Township and Garfield has grown substantially in the last decade…”
• Pockets of severe poverty intensify and spread around Tampa Bay area, By Jeff Harrington and Darla Cameron, November 6, 2011, St. Petersburg Times: “Derrick Lewis lives in the hardest-hit slice of the Tampa Bay area. The poverty rate here jumped nearly threefold from 15 percent to 40 percent over the past decade, the cusp of what’s considered extreme poverty. Lewis, 50, considers himself lucky. He juggles a nighttime security guard job and a morning job making biscuits at Hardee’s, enough income to pay his landlady $250 to $275 every couple of weeks. Around the corner from his one-bedroom apartment lies a couple of boarded-up apartments, vacated after their latest residents were caught selling drugs. ‘I feel bad for them,’ he says. ‘You see it in tough times. A lot of people that never would have thought of doing something illegal before. Instead of being homeless, they do what it takes.’ This isn’t the inner city. It’s the suburbs. In a far-reaching analysis released Thursday, the Brookings Institution compared poverty rates in U.S. Census tracts in 2000 to their average poverty rates between 2005 and 2009. Among the report’s chief conclusions: Poverty is growing twice as fast in suburbs than in cities…”

• Bay Area’s five poorest neighborhoods show up in study, By Matt O’Brien, November 3, 2011, San Jose Mercury News: “The Bay Area has fewer concentrations of extreme poverty than a decade ago, according to a report released Thursday. That may not console the people living in the Bay Area’s five poorest neighborhoods. In five census tracts, four of them in the East Bay, more than 40 percent of residents live below the poverty line, according to the Brookings Institution report. The neighborhoods are in downtown Berkeley, uptown Oakland, Alameda Point and parts of West Oakland and San Francisco’s Hunters Point. Two are business districts where many homeless congregate; one, the area around Oakland’s Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, has been central in the Occupy protests. Others are residential areas with well-kept public housing. The Uptown Oakland area, which includes some of downtown and the plaza, is a study in contrasts: Despite a glut of new condos meant to attract young professionals, more than 40 percent of residents live below the poverty line — which for a single person means making less than $11,000 a year…”
• Poor Chattanooga neighborhoods have more than doubled in 9 years, By Judy Walton, November 4, 2011, Chattanooga Times Free Press: “The number of extremely poor neighborhoods in Chattanooga and the region — those with poverty rates above 40 percent — more than doubled from 2000 to 2009, a new report shows. The number of people living in the poorest census tracts in the Chattanooga region grew by more than 4,200, to 10,535, in the period, according to ‘The Re-Emergence of Concentrated Poverty,’ from the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. The Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institute is a liberal-leaning nonprofit that researches social issues. ‘We lost ground against concentrated poverty in the 2000s,’ Elizabeth Kneebone, a senior research associate at Brookings and lead author of the report, said in a news release. ‘More people are living in areas that are extremely poor, and concentrated poverty now affects a greater swath of communities than in the past.’ In the release, Kneebone noted that the federal poverty level in 2010 was $22,314 annually for a family of four…”

• Extreme poverty spikes in U.S., study finds, By Sabrina Tavernise, November 3, 2011, New York Times: “The number of people living in neighborhoods of extreme poverty grew substantially, by one third, over the past decade, according to a new report, erasing most of the gains from the 1990’s when concentrated poverty declined. More than 10 percent of America’s poor now live in such neighborhoods, up from 9.1 percent in the beginning of the decade, an addition of more than 2 million people, according to the report by the Brookings Institution, an independent research group. Extreme poverty - defined as areas where at least 40 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty line, which in 2010, was $22,300 for a family of four - is still below its 1990 level, when 14 percent of poor people lived in such areas. The report analyzed Census Bureau income data from 2000 to 2009, the most recent year for which there is comprehensive data…”
• Poorest poor in US hits new record: 1 in 15 people, By Laura Wides-Munoz (AP), November 3, 2011, Deseret News: “The ranks of America’s poorest poor have climbed to a record high - 1 in 15 people - spread widely across metropolitan areas as the housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income. New census data paint a stark portrait of the nation’s haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains persistently high. It comes a week before the government releases first-ever economic data that will show more Hispanics, elderly and working-age poor have fallen into poverty. In all, the numbers underscore the breadth and scope by which the downturn has reached further into mainstream America…”
• Poverty’s grip grows in central Ohio, By Mark Ferenchik and Rita Price, November 3, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “The number of Columbus-area neighborhoods gripped by poverty continues to rise, and not only in the central city but in outlying areas as well. A report released today by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program says the number of census tracts showing extreme poverty in the city of Columbus increased from eight to 24 over 10 years. ‘That’s a very significant uptick,’ said Alan Berube, one of the report’s authors. The report says the number of extremely poor neighborhoods - those with poverty rates of 40 percent or higher - has jumped since 2000, with the population in those neighborhoods rising by one-third…”
• Brookings report finds poverty-stricken neighborhoods jump dramatically in Cleveland area, By Dave Davis, November 3, 2011, Cleveland Plain Dealer: “The number of people living in extremely poor neighborhoods has grown faster in Northeast Ohio suburbs than elsewhere in the nation, poverty figures released Thursday by the Brookings Institution show. By the end of 2009, 13 Northeast Ohio suburban neighborhoods had poverty rates of at least 40 percent, Brookings researchers found. (See the full document below). Ten years earlier there was none. With an 8 percentage point increase, Cleveland’s suburbs claimed the nation’s fourth highest rate of growth of the poor in poverty-stricken neighborhoods…”
• Toledo area poverty rise worst in U.S., By Mark Reiter, November 3, 2011, Toledo Blade: “The concentration of poor people living in Toledo’s poorest neighborhoods grew by more than 15 percent in the past decade, giving the metropolitan area the unenviable distinction of No. 1 among American’s largest metro areas. More than 46,000 people reside in neighborhoods with poverty rates of 40 percent or higher in the metro area — which includes Lucas, Fulton, Ottawa, and Wood counties — with all but one of the 22 poor neighborhoods located within the borders of Toledo, according to a Brookings Institution study of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country…”

Outside Cleveland, snapshots of poverty’s surge in the suburbs, By Sabrina Tavernise, October 24, 2011, New York Times: “The poor population in America’s suburbs - long a symbol of a stable and prosperous American middle class - rose by more than half after 2000, forcing suburban communities across the country to re-evaluate their identities and how they serve their populations. The increase in the suburbs was 53 percent, compared with 26 percent in cities. The recession accelerated the pace: two-thirds of the new suburban poor were added from 2007 to 2010. ‘The growth has been stunning,’ said Elizabeth Kneebone, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, who conducted the analysis of census data. ‘For the first time, more than half of the metropolitan poor live in suburban areas.’ As a result, suburban municipalities - once concerned with policing, putting out fires and repairing roads - are confronting a new set of issues, namely how to help poor residents without the array of social programs that cities have, and how to get those residents to services without public transportation. Many suburbs are facing these challenges with the tightest budgets in years…”

• Washington region has nation’s lowest poverty rate, By Carol Morello and Luz Lazo, October 20, 2011, Washington Post: “The Washington region had the lowest poverty rate of any major metropolitan area in the country during the past two years, even though poverty is up significantly and continues to rise. About 8.4 percent of the region’s residents lived in poverty in 2010, compared with 6.8 percent before the recession began in 2007. Although the rate represents a steep increase, it is far below the 15 percent national figure and that of urban areas in the West and the South, including Fresno, Calif., and El Paso, where more than 20 percent of people are poor. The region’s poverty rates have been among the lowest in the nation for many years. But although its rate has risen since the recession, other places have struggled more. Even the District, where the poverty rate is a staggering 19 percent, falls midway among other urban centers…”
• Fresno County poverty near nation’s highest, By Russell Clemings, October 20, 2011, Fresno Bee: “Driven by rising unemployment, poverty increased sharply in Fresno County between 2009 and 2010, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The percentage of people living below the poverty line, the exact value of which depends on family size and age of the householder, rose almost everywhere in those two years. Nationwide, that percentage was 14.3% in 2009 and 15.3% in 2010. But the Fresno metropolitan area, which consists of Fresno County, had a bigger rise - from 21.5% to 26.8%. That means more than 1 in 4 people here now live in poverty, compared to a little more than 1 in 5 before the recession-induced unemployment spike hit its peak. Because the census data is based on a survey that goes only to part of the population, the numbers are considered accurate only within 1 or 2 percentage points. But even that uncertainty is not enough to account for the change in Fresno County’s fortunes…”
• As poverty climbs, Utah’s cash handouts hold steady, By Brooke Adams, October 20, 2011, Salt Lake Tribune: “More Utah families slipped into poverty last year, but that wasn’t reflected in the estimated number of households receiving cash help from the government. An analysis of American Community Survey data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday found about 3.3 million households nationwide received public assistance in 2010, an increase of about 300,000 households from 2009. The analysis looked only at cash assistance, not such benefits as Supplemental Security Income or food stamps. Participation rates increased in 14 states, decreased in 25 and stayed flat in another 11 states - including Utah. That is likely because of Utah’s three-year, lifetime limit on welfare through the general assistance and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF] programs, said Terry Haven, Kids Count director at Voices for Utah Children. While federal law sets a 60-month, lifetime limit on cash assistance, states can set shorter limits or no time frame. In Utah, the limit is 36 months…”
• Census data show NH has nation’s lowest poverty rate, By Lisa Lambert, October 20, 2011, New Hampshire Union Leader: “The ranks of the poor rose in almost all U.S. states and cities in 2010, despite the end of the longest and deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression the year before, U.S. Census data released on Thursday showed. Mississippi and New Mexico had the highest poverty rates, with more than one out of every five people in each state living in poverty. Mississippi’s poverty rate led, at 22.4 percent, followed by New Mexico at 20.4 percent. New Hampshire had the lowest poverty rate, at 8.3 percent, making it the only state with a poverty rate below 10 percent. Twelve states had poverty rates above 17 percent, up from five in 2009, while poverty rates in 10 metropolitan areas topped 18 percent, the data showed…”
• Maine’s poverty rate isn’t the highest, but it’s No. 2 on public assistance list, By Eric Russell, October 20, 2011, Bangor Daily News: “New Census data show that Maine had one of the highest rates of households accepting public assistance in 2010 despite the fact that the state’s poverty rate was not among the highest. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey released this week compared rates of public assistance for all 50 states. In 2010, Maine saw 28,213 households accept public assistance, or 5.2 percent of the state’s population. That was an increase from the 4.9 percent of households that collected assistance in 2009. Maine’s rate trailed only Alaska (6.7 percent) and was significantly higher than the 2.9 percent national rate of households accepting public benefits in 2010. At 1.5 percent, Wyoming had the lowest rate. No state saw a decrease in the number of households accepting assistance from 2009 to 2010…”

• Poor neighborhoods may contribute to poor health, By Amina Khan, October 20, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “People who move from a poor neighborhood to a better-off one could end up thinner and healthier than those who stay behind, according to an urban housing experiment that tracked low-income residents in five major cities for 10 to 15 years. The research, set up by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, shows that health is closely linked to the environments people live in - and that social policies to change those environments or move people away from blighted areas could be a key tactic in fighting the ‘diabesity’ epidemic. The study released Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine took advantage of a 1990s social experiment approved by Congress primarily to track the changes in income, education and employment of people given the opportunity to move out of low-income housing in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Boston. At least 40% of the residents at the start of the study made less money than the federal poverty threshold. Researchers soon realized that the project could allow them to study residents’ changes in health as well, said study coauthor Dr. Robert Whitaker, a pediatrician at Temple University in Philadelphia…”
• Study: Living in poor neighborhood can hurt health, By Mike Stobbe (AP), October 21, 2011, Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “Back in the 1990s, the federal government tried an unusual social experiment: It offered thousands of poor women in big-city public housing a chance to live in more affluent neighborhoods. A decade later, the women who relocated had lower rates of diabetes and extreme obesity - differences that are being hailed as compelling evidence that where you live can determine your health. The experiment was initially aimed at researching whether moving impoverished families to more prosperous areas could improve employment or schooling. But according to a study released Wednesday, the most interesting effect may have been on the women’s physical condition…”
• Study: Better neighborhood lowers obesity, diabetes risk, By Nanci Hellmich, October 19, 2011, USA Today: “Low-income moms who move from very poor neighborhoods to less disadvantaged ones lower their risk of becoming extremely obese and developing type 2 diabetes, a study reveals. ‘This research shows how important the environment can be for people’s health,’ says the study’s lead author, Jens Ludwig, a professor of social service administration, law and public policy at the University of Chicago. Obesity increases people’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other serious health problems. People in poorer neighborhoods are at a higher risk of becoming too heavy because they may not have access to grocery stores that are well-stocked with healthy fare such as fresh fruits and vegetables, often don’t have safe places to be physically active and may have greater concerns about safety, which could impact their psychological stress and eating habits, Ludwig says…”

More low-income residents with housing vouchers are moving to the suburbs, study finds, By Ted Roelofs, October 18, 2011, Grand Rapids Press: “The stereotype of public housing as an inner city landmark is belied in communities across West Michigan, where Grand Rapids ranks No. 9 in the nation’s metropolitan areas for growth in suburban housing vouchers. Equal-access housing advocates maintain the trend is better for both city and suburb alike, affording low-income residents economic opportunity while broadening diversity within the metropolitan area…”

Report: People on housing assistance are moving to the suburbs, By Matthew Sturdevant, October 13, 2011, Hartford Courant: “Low-income people who receive federal housing vouchers are moving to the suburbs - a 42 percent increase in metro Hartford between 2000 and 2008, according to a new report. The Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C. think tank, said changes in federal policy during the 1990s gave people who receive housing vouchers more living options…”

• Unemployment rates fell in two-thirds of US cities last month, despite slowdown in hiring, Associated Press, September 28, 2011, Washington Post: “Unemployment rates fell in roughly two-thirds of U.S. cities last month, despite zero job growth nationwide. The Labor Department said Wednesday that unemployment rates dropped in 237 of the nation’s largest metro areas in August from July. They rose in 103 and stayed the same in 32. That’s an improvement from July, when rates fell in 193 areas and rose in 118. Some areas with large agricultural sectors added jobs to coincide with the start of the harvest. Auto companies boosted hiring in several other cities…”
• Georgia could cut jobless benefits to repay feds, By Dan Chapman, September 27, 2011, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Georgia borrowed $721 million from Washington to help the unemployed survive the lousy economy and now, as the bills come due, it may repay the debt by cutting back on jobless benefits. The state Labor Department will send a $21.4 million check to Washington this week, the first payment on debt run up since late 2009. Labor Commissioner Mark Butler is weighing a slew of repayment options, but strongly hinted he favors cutting benefits — both the weekly amount and the number of weeks of eligibility…”

Reading, Pa., knew it was poor. Now it knows just how poor., By Sabrina Tavernise, September 26, 2011, New York Times: “The exhausted mothers who come to the Second Street Learning Center here - a day care provider for mostly low-income families - speak of low wages, hard jobs and an economy gone bad. Ashley Kelleher supports her family on the $900 a month she earns as a waitress at an International House of Pancakes. Louri Williams packs cakes and pies all night for $8 an hour, takes morning classes, and picks up her children in the afternoon. Teresa Santiago takes complaints from building supply customers for $10 an hour, not enough to cover her $1,900 in monthly bills. These are common stories in Reading, a struggling city of 88,000 that has earned the unwelcome distinction of having the largest share of its residents living in poverty, barely edging out Flint, Mich., according to new Census Bureau data. The count includes only cities with populations of 65,000 or more, and has a margin of error that makes it difficult to declare a winner - or, perhaps more to the point, a loser…”

• Mobile poverty jumps almost 2 percent; poverty rises elsewhere in Alabama, September 23, 2011, Mobile Press-Register: “American Community Survey 1-year estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau show that poverty in the Mobile metropolitan area rose from 18.4 percent in 2009 to 20.2 percent in 2010 — almost a 2-percent jump. During the same period, median household income in the Mobile metro fell from $40,407 in 2009 to $39,998 in 2010…”
• Of big cities, Valley had 3rd-largest job-loss rate, By Ronald J. Hansen, September 22, 2011, Arizona Republic: “The Phoenix area from 2008 to 2010 suffered one of the worst declines among the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas in the percentage of working-age people with a job, according to newly released Census Bureau data. As of last summer, the Phoenix area also was near the bottom of the largest markets in the share of its population that held a job, at 65.6 percent. Nine metro areas had lower figures, and three others matched Phoenix’s percentage. The annual Census Bureau estimates, which also included worsening numbers for household income and poverty rate, portray a region that has fared worse than the nation as a whole in the aftermath of the Great Recession…”
• Census calls Memphis poorest in nation, By Tom Charlier, September 23, 2011, Memphis Commercial Appeal: “With nearly one in five residents stuck below the poverty line, metropolitan Memphis ranks as by far the most impoverished large metro area in the nation, new census figures show. Of the 1.3 million people in the eight-county metro area, an estimated 246,265 — 19.1 percent — lived in poverty last year, according to figures released Thursday from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey…”
• Child poverty rate in Connecticut cities hits ‘alarming’ rate, census data shows, By Angela Carter, September 22, 2011, Middletown Press: “Connecticut workers earn a median income of $40,478 in an environment where income is falling among all groups and cities are facing ‘alarming’ child poverty rates, according to the American Community Survey, released Thursday by the Census Bureau. The American Community Survey is an annual survey between decennial Census counts in geographic areas in the United States with a population of 65,000 or more…”
• Poverty pervades the suburbs, By Tami Luhby, September 23, 2011, CNNMoney.com: “Guess where most people in poverty live? Hint: It’s not in the inner cities or rural America. It’s in the idyllic suburbs. A record 15.4 million suburban residents lived below the poverty line last year, up 11.5% from the year before, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of Census data released Thursday. That’s one-third of the nation’s poor. And their ranks are swelling fast, as jobs disappear and incomes decline amid the continued weak economy. Since 2000, the number of suburban poor has skyrocketed by 53%, battered by the two recessions that wiped out many manufacturing jobs early on, and low-wage construction and retail positions more recently…”
• Census report shows Greater Cleveland families are feeling the sting of a lost decade, By Robert L. Smith, September 22, 2011, Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Some economists are referring to the last 10 years as the ‘lost decade’ and no doubt tens of thousands of Greater Clevelanders feel something critical has been missing. That something is income. A new report from the U.S. Census Bureau confirms that the region is deeply embedded in a gloomy national trend, one that has seen middle-class incomes steadily erode…”
• Census shows rise in N.Y. poverty, By Joseph Spector, September 22, 2011, Ithaca Journal: “New York’s poverty rate rose 5 percent between 2009 and 2010, while home values and median household income fell slightly, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday. The data shows how New York, as well as the nation, continues to struggle through a difficult economic period. People living in poverty in New York — which is categorized as a family of four earning less than roughly $22,000 a year — rose from 14.2 percent of households to 14.9 percent between 2009 and 2010, according to the census data…”
• More Rhode Islanders fall below poverty line, By Paul Davis, September 23, 2011, Providence Journal: “Struggling with a lingering recession and high unemployment, more Rhode Islanders fell below the poverty line last year, according to new census figures released Thursday. The poverty rate rose to 14 percent last year from 11.5 percent in 2009, according to 2010 numbers that are part of the American Community Survey. The state’s poverty rate, the highest in New England, is less than the nation’s 15.3-percent rate. After Rhode Island, Maine had the highest poverty rate in New England at 12.9 percent…”
• Census data paints bleak economic picture in Kentucky, By Valarie Honeycutt Spears, September 23, 2011, Lexington Herald-Leader: “New data from the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday painted a bleak picture of Kentucky’s economic health. Household income is down. Poverty is up. Low-paying jobs are replacing higher-paying jobs. Use of food stamps and publicly funded health care is up. Median household income fell in Kentucky in 2010 from the previous year by $778 and the share of the state’s households that earn annual incomes between $10,000 and $25,000 is increasing, according to the data…”

• Recession’s lost generation: Census finds new lows in mobility, jobs, wedlock for young adults, Associated Press, September 21, 2011, Washington Post: “Young adults are the recession’s lost generation. In record numbers, they’re struggling to find work, shunning long-distance moves to live with mom and dad, delaying marriage and raising kids out of wedlock, if they’re becoming parents at all. The unemployment rate for them is the highest since World War II and risk living in poverty more than others. Data released Thursday from the 2010 census show the wrenching impact of a recession that officially ended in mid-2009…”
• Wisconsin’s median income plummets, census figures show, By Bill Glauber, Ben Poston, Annysa Johnson and Mike Johnson, September 21, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “To all those Wisconsin workers who feel like they’ve been economically squeezed in the first decade of the 21st century: It’s not your imagination. It’s reality. Adjusted for inflation, median household income in the state declined 14.5% between 1999 and 2010, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Thursday. The rate of decline in Wisconsin dwarfed the national drop of 8.9% in median household income over the same period…”
• Poverty numbers spike in Milwaukee, By Bill Glauber, Ben Poston, Annysa Johnson and Mike Johnson, September 21, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Poverty has tightened its grip on the city of Milwaukee, flared in Waukesha County and surged statewide, according to startling figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Milwaukee’s poverty rate was 29.5% last year, up from 27% in 2009. In all, 171,521 people - including nearly half the city’s children - lived below the poverty line in 2010 as Milwaukee remained among America’s 10 most impoverished big cities. In Waukesha County, one of the wealthiest counties in the state, 6.3% of the population was in poverty, up from 4.8% in 2009…”
• One in five New York City residents living in poverty, By Sam Roberts, September 22, 2011, New York Times: “Poverty grew nationwide last year, but the increase was even greater in New York City, the Census Bureau will report on Thursday, suggesting that New York was being particularly hard hit by the aftermath of the recession. From 2009 to 2010, 75,000 city residents were pushed into poverty, increasing the poor population to more than 1.6 million and raising the percentage of New Yorkers living below the official federal poverty line to 20.1 percent, the highest level since 2000. The 1.4-percentage-point annual increase in the poverty rate appeared to be the largest jump in nearly two decades…”
• Poverty rate rose in Philadelphia from 2009 to 2010, By Alfred Lubrano, September 22, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “The poverty rate in Philadelphia jumped nearly two percentage points from 2009 to 2010, according to a federal report released Thursday, underscoring the growing plight of residents being swamped by unemployment and hard times…”
• 1 in 4 Baltimore residents living in poverty, By Steve Kilar, September 22, 2011, Baltimore Sun: “About one in four Baltimore residents is living in poverty, a one-year increase of more than 20 percent, according to estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Although the recession officially ended in June 2009, a federal survey conducted last year shows that the downturn’s enduring effects have led poverty rates to skyrocket over a short period. The uptick is straining government and charitable resources and leaving Baltimore leaders scrambling for solutions…”
• Census: More residents sinking into poverty, By Jack Broom and Justin Mayo, September 21, 2011, Seattle Times: “Household income - in Washington state and across the country - declined in 2010, while the percentage of people living in poverty increased, as did the numbers of people without health insurance, according to data being released Thursday by the Census Bureau…”
• More in Michigan fall into poverty, By Mike Wilkinson and Serena Maria Daniels, September 22, 2011, Detroit News: “Just as the nation was declaring the recession officially over last year, the landscape in Michigan was far from rosy: The poverty rate in 2010 was its highest in at least four decades, and incomes continued to fall as the economic shift away from manufacturing continued, new census data released this morning shows. The data reveals problems that could grow worse with plans to cut aid to the poor while also slashing spending on higher education, one of the surest ways to avoid poverty…”
• Metro Detroit schools see surge in number of kids living in poverty, By Lori Higgins, September 22, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “More of the children attending schools in metro Detroit are living in poverty, a trend pronounced not just in urban areas but also in some of the tri-county’s wealthier areas. Between 2006 and 2010 — a period marked by a recession that rocked Michigan more than most states — 19 school districts in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties saw increases of more than 100% in the number of poor children. Some of it can be tied to low-income families moving into wealthier districts as they look for better schools. But mostly, school officials say, it’s homegrown, with local parents falling into poverty after losing jobs or dealing with pay cuts…”
• Census survey data: Minn. income continued downward slide in 2010, By Elizabeth Dunbar, September 21, 2011, Minnesota Public Radio: “Minnesotans’ income took another hit in 2010, and the poverty rate edged up, according to new American Community Survey data released Thursday. Median household income fell from about $56,600 in 2009 to about $55,500 in 2010, with inflation already taken into account. Since 2007, median income has dropped by about 5 percent in Minnesota. The poverty rate increased from 11 percent to 11.6 percent from 2009 to 2010, and the uptick was even more pronounced among children: 15.2 percent in 2010 compared to 14.1 percent in 2009…”
• Poverty extends reach across St. Louis region, By Doug Moore, September 22, 2011, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “The recession officially ended two years ago, but the number of people living in poverty here and across the country continues to rise. New data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau show that an additional 19,000 people living in the region’s top six counties plus the city of St. Louis fell into poverty in 2010…”
• More than 1 in 5 Austin residents live in poverty, new census data show, By Juan Castillo, September 22, 2011, Austin American-Statesman: “More people in Austin lived in poverty, were on food stamps and saw their median family household incomes shrink in 2010, according to new census data out today depicting the growing toll of the weakened economy in Central Texas and across the state. About 18 percent of all Texans lived in poverty in 2010, more than 3 percentage points above the national average…”
• Census: City lags in education, By Jeannie Kever, September 21, 2011, Houston Chronicle: “Houston faces sharp divisions over education and opportunity, according to Census data released today. More than one in four adults - and more than 40 percent of Hispanics - don’t have a high school diploma. That’s higher than the state average, and far higher than the national average of 14.4 percent. On the other hand, more than 28 percent of Houston residents have at least a bachelor’s degree, slightly higher than the national average and almost 3 percent higher than state figures…”

Unemployment rates fell in 193 large metro areas in July, rose in 118, and were flat in 61, Associated Press, August 31, 2011, Washington Post: “Unemployment rates fell in a majority of U.S. cities in July, despite a weak economy that is producing few jobs. The Labor Department said Wednesday that unemployment rates dropped in 193 large metro areas, increased in 118 and were flat in 61. That’s a sharp change from June, when unemployment rates rose in more than 90 percent of metro areas…”

• Study finds poverty is a high risk factor for AIDS, By Don Sapatkin, August 12, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Poverty, long known to be a major factor behind the HIV epidemic in urban areas, is such a powerful force that income and related measures are better predictors of who will get infected than whether a person exchanges sex for money, according to a new federal study of heterosexuals in 24 cities. The study, published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was too small to break out findings on Philadelphia or the other cities. But it helps explain why Philadelphia has some of the highest HIV rates in the country, as Philadelphia is among the most impoverished of big cities. The report emphasized that in the communities studied, poverty was more closely linked to HIV than was behavior traditionally seen as driving the epidemic…”
• Poverty a strong factor for HIV in Atlanta and other cities, CDC finds, By Carrie Teegardin, August 11, 2011, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “The HIV infection rate for low-income heterosexuals from Atlanta and 23 other cities is 10 to 20 times higher than the overall rate for the nation, according to a study released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People who did not finish high school, were unemployed and had incomes below the poverty line were all significantly more likely to be HIV positive than heterosexuals with higher levels of education and income…”

• Study: Income does not explain segregation patterns in housing, By Carol Morello, August 1, 2011, Washington Post: “Affluent blacks and Hispanics live in neighborhoods that are noticeably poorer than neighborhoods where low-income whites live, according to a new study that suggests income alone does not explain persistent segregation patterns in housing. Washington and Atlanta were the only two major metropolitan regions in the country that followed a slightly different pattern. In these two cities, the study found that the situation for high-income blacks and Hispanics was equal, but not worse, than that of low-income whites…”
• Richer minorities seen living in poorer neighborhoods, By Haya El Nasser, August 2, 2011, USA Today: “The most successful blacks and Hispanics are more likely to have poor neighbors than are whites, according to a new analysis of Census data. The average affluent black and Hispanic household - defined in the study as earning more than $75,000 a year - lives in a poorer neighborhood than the average lower-income non-Hispanic white household that makes less than $40,000 a year…”

Unemployment rose in nearly all US cities, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), August 3, 2011, Sacramento Bee: “Unemployment rates rose in more than 90 percent of U.S. cities in June, mirroring a national slowdown in hiring. The Labor Department said Wednesday that unemployment rates rose in 345 large metro areas. They dropped in 20 cities and were unchanged in seven. That’s worse than May, when rates rose in only 210 cities. And it is a sharp reversal from April, when unemployment rates fell in nearly all metro areas. The biggest increase was in Joplin, Mo, which was hit by a major tornado on May 22. The city lost 9,400 jobs in June, and the unemployment rate jumped nearly 2 percentage points, to 9.6 percent. The national unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent in June, the highest level this year…”

The art of luring ‘poor’ cities into energy-saving projects, By Ellen M. Gilmer, June 27, 2011, New York Times: “The decay of Michigan’s many rusted-out towns doesn’t strike most as fertile ground for any kind of green movement. But entrepreneur Sean Reed sees the state as a prime spot for energy efficiency measures to take root. Through the Clean Energy Coalition, where he is executive director, Reed is aiming to bring those cash-strapped cities into the sustainability fold by making available more clean energy technology in the local building and transportation sectors. Change, though, is not likely to come easily. One CEC project — Cities of Promise — targets municipal energy use in struggling communities, like Flint and Hamtramck. Using a $4.4 million grant issued last year by the Michigan Public Service Commission, CEC has performed energy audits of city-owned and -operated buildings in eight towns…”

London’s poor facing squeeze amid housing-benefit cuts, By Anthony Faiola, June 20, 2011, Washington Post: “The choice of the London A-list, St. John’s Wood is a neighborhood of ethereal wealth, its leafy avenues lined with the ample mansions of Paul McCartney, Ewan McGregor and Kate Moss. And yet, they share the most unlikely neighbors - the Kastrati family. Poor immigrants struggling to survive in one of the world’s most expensive cities, the family of four nevertheless lives in a sunny, two-bedroom flat in an enclave of urban privilege. Their benefactor: the British government, which covers 85 percent of their $3,600-a-month rent through welfare benefits giving tens of thousands of low-income earners access to even the best neighborhoods. But the clock on such subsidized London lifestyles is suddenly running out. The Conservative-led government is rolling out Britain’s most sweeping welfare reform since the 1940s, taking aim at the ballooning bills in cities such as London, where a few families receive as much as $160,000 a year to ensure economic diversity and quality housing for the poor in some of the priciest districts in the world. Yet as benefits are rolled back, academics are warning of a major side effect: an exodus of the poor from central London in numbers not seen since the demolition of soot-caked Dickensian slums in the 19th century…”

Big cities attracting poverty, Statscan data show, By Heather Scoffield, June 21, 2011, Globe and Mail: “Canada’s biggest urban areas are stuck in a rut of persistent poverty, while mid-sized cities are gaining ground despite the recent recession, new data from Statistics Canada show. The metropolitan areas of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal have poverty rates far above the national average, details of a report on income in Canada in 2009 show. But Quebec City and Victoria, on the other hand, have seen steady and significant declines in the number of people living with low incomes over the last decade, despite the recent recession.  The trends are no surprise to Mike Creek, who works with homeless and impoverished people in Toronto, after spending years in poverty himself.  ‘If you stick around in a smaller community and you have that shame (of living in poverty), you become stigmatized. So I think it’s easier for someone to pack up their bags and try some place else,’ Mr. Creek says.  Urban centres, he says, ‘provide more opportunities around housing, and job opportunities and services that they may not find in smaller communities.’  Released last week, the Statistics Canada report is the first detailed, national look at what happened to income during the recession…”

• Homelessness in L.A. County falls 3%, survey finds, By Rong-Gong Lin II and Alexandra Zavis, June 15, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Homelessness on any given day in Los Angeles County has decreased about 3% in the last two years despite the lingering effects of the recession, according to a new survey released Tuesday. But the number of homeless veterans, including younger men and women, grew. The study, conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority in January, put the homeless figure at 51,430 in L.A. County, including 23,359 in the city of Los Angeles, which saw a 9% decrease…”
• City’s family shelters are filling up faster, sooner this season, By Jennifer Lin, June 15, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “For four days, Yasmeen Goodmond, 23, went to the city’s homeless-services office, asking for help. And for four days, she was told there were no beds for her family. With nowhere to go, Goodmond and her two children went to the emergency room at Hahnemann University Hospital. They slept in chairs in the waiting room and slipped out in the morning. But their welcome was wearing out. On Monday night, Goodmond asked her cousin to watch her 5-year-old daughter for a few days, while turning to her grandmother for help with her 2-year-old son. For herself, she stayed on the streets, walking all over Center City, never sleeping…”
• US homeless population up slightly, as ranks grow outside cities, By Tony Pugh, June 14, 2011, Kansas City Star: “Despite high unemployment and a stalled economy, the nation’s homeless population grew only slightly in 2010 as stimulus-funded initiatives helped to take or keep nearly 700,000 people off the streets, according to a federal report released Tuesday. While once a predominantly urban problem largely of individuals without families, homelessness, like poverty, has increasingly migrated to suburban and rural areas where more non-Hispanic white families are being affected. In fact, the number of homeless people in households with at least one adult and one child has increased 20 percent since 2007, and families make up a larger share of those in emergency housing than ever before…”
• HUD reports 57 percent increase in rural, suburban Americans using shelters in recent years, Associated Press, June 14, 2011, Washington Post: “As the recession gripped America, thousands more people in rural and suburban areas turned to homeless shelters for help. The number of people using shelters or transitional housing in suburban and rural areas increased 57 percent from 2007 to 2010, with more than 500,000 people from smaller communities seeking help in 2010, according to a report by the Housing and Urban Development Department. During the same time there was a decrease in the use of shelters in urban areas…”

• Obstacles seen in poor areas for new farmers’ markets, By Diane Cardwell, April 11, 2011, New York Times: “For years, the Bloomberg administration has labored to improve the eating habits of New Yorkers, banning trans fats from restaurants, urging food purveyors to use less salt and creating special zoning to encourage fresh-food supermarkets to open in produce-poor neighborhoods. But the city still puts roadblocks in the way of community groups seeking to open farmers’ markets in low-income neighborhoods, says a report to be released on Tuesday by the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer. Those efforts face excessive fees, confusing rules and a lack of coordination among agencies, the report says…”
• Coming to a vacant lot near you, the neighborhood farm, By Madeleine Baran, April 7, 2011, Minnesota Public Radio: “Farmers looking for land to grow food to sell may have another option. A plan to expand urban agriculture in Minneapolis passed the city’s zoning and planning committee on Thursday, opening the door for farmers to turn vacant lots into commercial farms. Minneapolis is already home to community gardens and farmers markets, but the city lacked definitions or regulations of land used to grow and sell food. Urban agriculture supporters said that made it impossible to get approval for innovative farming projects. Similar plans have been adopted in Cleveland, Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas City, Oakland and Detroit…”

Unemployment rates fall in more than 75 percent of metro areas due to widespread job gains, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), April 6, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Unemployment rates are falling in most metro areas across the country, suggesting that recent nationwide gains in hiring are widespread and not limited to a few healthy regions. More than three-quarters of the nation’s 372 largest metro areas reported lower unemployment rates in February than the previous month, the Labor Department said Wednesday. That’s the most to report a decline since September. And more than 300 areas added jobs in February compared to the previous month. That’s a much better showing than January, when most metro areas lost jobs…”

Federal cuts could hit US housing agencies, By Samantha Gross (AP), March 11, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “Kevin Gaines and his family got rashes soon after they moved into their new apartment. His son kept getting nosebleeds. The dust made it hard to breathe. When Gaines, a liver transplant recipient, saw yellow mold creeping over the ceiling, he said doctors warned it could cause him to reject his new organ. After Gaines complained, city inspectors recorded dozens of code violations and city workers even came in to make repairs. New York City officials warn, however, that budget cuts being pushed by some members of Congress could decimate their housing enforcement efforts, slicing the funds used to pay inspectors, sue landlords and perform emergency repairs. Around the country, the cuts could also shutter community centers, leave rural water outages unchecked, stymie plans for new housing developments and reduce the money available for fixing broken elevators and leaking roofs in the nation’s public housing. Budget proposals by both the Senate and House of Representatives were voted down Wednesday as lawmakers attempt to wrangle a compromise that would prevent the federal government from shutting down when the latest temporary spending measure expires March 18…”

• Block grants could face major cuts as federal funds to fight poverty tighten, By Henri E. Cauvin, March 3, 2011, Washington Post: “Community development block grants have been a vital source of federal anti-poverty money for decades, supporting affordable housing, job training and an array of other programs serving low-income communities. When President Obama, in his 2012 budget, proposed cutting funding for CDBGs, as they are known, by about $300 million, local officials across the country worried about their already-battered finances. Then House Republicans offered their take on the nearly $4 billion grant program. Not only did they urge cutting the program by more than half, to $1.5 billion, they also endorsed making the cuts in the middle of the current fiscal year, part of the $61 billion in proposed cuts that have helped set up the budget battle. Even with Congress having voted this week on smaller cuts to keep the government funded through March 18, the far bigger trims proposed by the Republicans are still on the table. Cuts might not be finalized, but their seeming inevitability has made clear to America’s cities that they face a new reality in Washington…”
• Milwaukee agencies brace for impact of federal cuts in aid to poor, By Georgia Pabst, February 27, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Programs designed to help the poor such as Head Start, energy assistance, education and training could be cut drastically under federal budget proposals that have been made by President Barack Obama and the U.S. House. Local and national officials who work in programs that assist low-income people are watching carefully as the House and the U.S. Senate take up measures to fund federal programs for the remainder of the year and the 2012 budget, but they say it seems clear that many programs aimed at those with low incomes will be trimmed. One of the biggest cuts proposed by Obama is to reduce Community Service Block Grants by half - from $700 million to $350 million. The grants go to anti-poverty agencies such as Milwaukee’s Social Development Commission…”

• Milwaukee students rank below average on national science test, By Erin Richards, February 24, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Among 17 urban school districts that participated in a national science assessment in 2009, Milwaukee students in fourth and eighth grades scored below the average performance of their respective peers attending public schools in other large cities, according to a new report. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also called the Nation’s Report Card, Milwaukee’s fourth-graders ranked 11th out of 17 urban districts based on the percentage of its children who scored at or above a basic level of science achievement. In eighth grade, Milwaukee ranked 13th out of 17 big-city districts based on the percentage of students who scored at or above basic. Basic is defined as having partial mastery of the material presented on the test, which featured questions about physical science, life science, and Earth and space sciences…”
• Chicago students lag in science, By Joel Hood, February 24, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “A new national study on science proficiency indicates Illinois students are on par with their peers across the U.S., but Chicago students are lagging well behind counterparts in other large urban school districts. The findings were not surprising for Chicago Public Schools, whose students, on average, are also testing behind others in math and reading. Instead, as the district braces for yet another change in leadership under Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, educators said the findings are a stark reminder of the challenges confronting CPS as it strives to prepare students for a global economy…”
• National science test news is mixed, By Ann Doss Helms, February 25, 2011, Charlotte Observer: “A national science exam shows Charlotte-Mecklenburg students outperforming counterparts in most urban districts but paints a bleak picture of any of the districts’ ability to prepare minority and low-income children for a science-oriented world. In CMS, fewer than 1 in 10 black and low-income eighth-graders rated proficient at science on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, which released results for 17 urban districts Thursday. Two-thirds of those students lacked even basic science skills, according to the test, known as ‘the nation’s report card.’ That was still better than most of the participating districts, which include such cities as Detroit, Chicago, New York City and Atlanta…”

Toronto’s poor concentrated in aging highrises, By Laurie Monsebraaten, Toronto Star: “They rise up among the postwar bungalows of Toronto’s inner suburbs. Towering buildings that house hundreds of thousands of the city’s poorest people. These apartments are often the first home for those who came to this country looking for a better life. Once built to house modest-income and middle-class families, these aging highrises have increasingly fallen into disrepair and become rife with problems - drug dealing, vandalism, bug infestations, overcrowding - and increasing poverty. That is the bleak reality for too many highrise dwellers in Toronto, according to Vertical Poverty, a landmark report released by the United Way Wednesday. It is a troubling development in a city where almost half of residents are renters, says the report based on Census data from 1981 to 2006 and a survey of 2,803 highrise tenants conducted in the summer and fall of 2009. Although the bulk of tenants surveyed live in private-sector towers, responses from about 600 non-profit tenants suggest living conditions are worse in those buildings…”

Unemployment rises in two-thirds of metro areas, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), January 4, 2011, Modesto Bee: “Unemployment rates rose in more than two-thirds of the nation’s largest metro areas in November, a sharp reversal from the previous month and the most since June. The Labor Department said Tuesday that unemployment rates rose in 258 of the 372 largest cities, fell in 88 and remained the same in 26. That’s worse than the previous month, when rates fell in 200 areas and rose in 108. The economy is strengthening, but employers have been reluctant to create jobs. Hiring will pick up in 2011, but not enough to significantly lower the unemployment rate, economists forecast…”

• Census Bureau data: Richest counties get richer, poorest get poorer, By Susanna Kim, December 19, 2010, ABC News: “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, at least judging by the most extreme neighborhoods for median household income in the latest Census Bureau data. The census’ American Community Survey, released last week, provides detailed neighborhood data, including languages spoken in a home, commute time and income levels. The poorest county, Owsley County, Ky., had the lowest median household income outside of Puerto Rico. Its median income decreased to $18,869 from $20,346 in 2000. Of all the county or county equivalents, Falls Church, Va. had the highest median income, at $113,313, an increase from $96,449 in 2000…”
• Poverty up by 10% in most Wisconsin counties, By Ben Poston, December 19, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “In a sign that a waning economic tide lowers all boats, the majority of Wisconsin counties saw their poverty rates increase by more than 10% since 2000, a new report from the University of Wisconsin Extension finds. And newly released figures from the Census Bureau show there are now 10 counties with poverty rates higher than 15%, including Milwaukee County, where 18% of residents are impoverished. In the last decennial census, only two - Menominee and Milwaukee counties - had rates that high. Meanwhile, Milwaukee County’s suburbs reported the lowest poverty rates in the state. Waukesha and Ozaukee counties had poverty rates of 4.1%, followed by Washington County at 5.3%. Those counties also had the lowest rates in 2000…”
• Poverty deepens its hold on some metro-east communities, By Kevin Bersett, December 17, 2010, Belleville News-Democrat: “Numbers don’t usually tell the whole story. And sometimes they contradict what people on the street see every day. That was the case with those asked to respond to data about the percentage of families living in poverty released Tuesday as part of the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey five-year estimate. This survey was based on data gathered from questionnaires sent to about 3 million households nationwide every year between Jan. 1, 2005, and Dec. 31, 2009. Some metro-east communities saw dramatic changes in their poverty levels compared with data compiled for the 2000 census count…”
• Survey finds Southern Nevada increasingly educated and diverse, By Jackie Valley, December 17, 2010, Las Vegas Sun: “A new survey released by the U.S. Census Bureau paints Southern Nevada as a more educated and diverse populace - at least according to community data gathered from 2005 through 2009. The five-year American Community Survey released Tuesday shows that more Clark County residents possess higher education degrees compared to 10 years ago. According to the survey, 21.3 percent of county residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to 17.3 percent in 2000. The ongoing survey, which focuses on socioeconomic information in communities and is separate from the 2010 Census, took the place of the long-form Census questionnaire so Census workers can focus on calculating the size and location of the country’s population. This year marks the first release of the five-year survey, collected over 60 months and billed as the most reliable of the American Community Surveys…”

• Southern Indiana’s education gains fail to stem poverty rise, By Ben Zion Hershberg, December 14, 2010, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Despite recent gains in education, poverty rates in Southern Indiana counties have climbed and average household incomes have dropped. Those findings released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau show more adults with high school diplomas in Clark, Floyd and Harrison counties and more who are college graduates in Clark and Floyd for the 2005-09 survey period, compared with 2000 Census data. But household incomes, adjusted for inflation, are down in all three counties, and poverty rates are higher in Clark and Floyd…”
• Tiny city tops lists for poverty and youth opportunity, By Sasha Aslanian, December 16, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “Landfall is a tiny city east of St. Paul, right behind a Harley Davidson dealership on the edge of a small lake. It’s a mobile home park of about 700 residents. More than a quarter of them live in poverty, which the federal government defines as just short of $11,000 for an individual in 2009. ‘You cannot live cheaper than living in Landfall,’ said Greg Feldbrugge, mayor of Landfall. Everyone knows him as ‘Flash’, a nickname he earned during his days as a stockcar racer. He moved here 13 years ago, and has been mayor for the last 4…”
• Data show households in southern, eastern Oklahoma get most public assistance dollars, By Gavin Off, December 15, 2010, Tulsa World: “According to U.S. Census Bureau data, public assistance payments to households in some southern or eastern Oklahoma counties nearly doubled the state’s average household payment in 2009. However, the top individual recipient counties were outside those areas. On average, households in Logan and Jackson counties received more than $130 in public assistance last year, the most of any county. Households in McCurtain and Choctaw counties received more than $90 in public assistance last year. The state average was $50. Tulsa County households received an average of $60, data show…”
• Census numbers bear out rise in poverty, By Dorothy Schneider, December 15, 2010, Lafayette Journal and Courier: “Jennifer Bickett knows firsthand that more people are struggling to make ends meet in Tippecanoe County, as was confirmed by new U.S. Census data released Tuesday. The Lafayette resident cited shopping at Goodwill as one of the ways she’s tried to save money on clothes and household items. Bickett’s husband worked in the auto industry until 2008, ‘when everything went kerplunk,’ she said. Now, she said, he’s in an electrician apprenticeship, earning about half of his former salary. Meanwhile, Bickett’s own job as a real estate agent hasn’t been paying dividends, given the ongoing sales lag and foreclosure crisis. ‘For now we definitely have to cut back on spending,’ she said. That’s a common refrain among Tippecanoe County residents, according to information released Tuesday from the American Community Survey…”
• Census: Segregation hits 100-year lows in most American metro areas, By Patrik Jonsson, December 14, 2010, Christian Science Monitor: “A drive through Atlanta’s older “intown” residential areas quickly bears out new Census findings: That segregation by race in the US is fading in many, though far from all, American neighborhoods. Atlanta is one of several predominantly Southern and Western cities that showed a noticeable integration trend over the last five years as both middle-class blacks and whites moved into each other’s neighborhoods, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey of 10 million Americans, released Tuesday. The ACS is the largest demographic survey ever done in the United States…”
• Census data show ’surprising’ segregation, By Haya El Nasser, December 14, 2010, USA Today: “Despite increased racial and ethnic diversity, American neighborhoods continue to be segregated and some of the progress made toward integration since 1980 has come to a halt this decade, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data released Tuesday. ‘This is a surprising result,’said Brown University sociology professor John Logan, who analyzed 2005-09 Census numbers. ‘At worst, it was expected that there would be continued slow progress.’ The five-year data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey provide the first opportunity to gauge post-2000 demographic trends all the way down to small neighborhoods…”
• Milwaukee area tops Brookings segregation study of census data, By Tom Tolan and Bill Glauber, December 14, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Burdened by history and shaped by demography, Milwaukee remains one of the most racially segregated large metropolitan areas in the nation, according to U.S. census data released Tuesday and analyzed by the Brookings Institution. The city and surrounding area, including Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee counties, sit atop a black-white segregation index of America’s top 100 metro areas. Milwaukee is in a virtual tie with the Detroit and New York metro areas, and just ahead of Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo and St. Louis. While the study was getting national attention, two University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers cast doubt on the findings, saying the way segregation is defined defies common sense…”

• Report: Colorado poverty levels rise, By Colleen O’Connor, December 15, 2010, Denver Post: “The number of Colorado neighborhoods with a significant number of residents living in poverty doubled over the past decade, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. Neighborhoods with at least 20 percent of people in poverty doubled from about one in 10 at the start of the decade to one in five by the end of the decade. For children, the reality was even more harsh: One in five neighborhoods had at least 20 percent of its children living in poverty in 2000, which increased to an average of one in three neighborhoods between 2005 and 2009. The number of neighborhoods with at least 30 percent of children living in poverty nearly tripled, to 206 in the second half of the decade from 74 at the start…”
• Census details poverty, low education in Eastern Kentucky, By Marcus Green, December 14, 2010, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Kentucky has 13 counties, mostly in the eastern part of the state, whose median household incomes are below $25,000 — including Owsley County, which also has the nation’s smallest percentage of bachelor’s degrees, new U.S. Census Bureau data shows. The figures from the American Community Survey put the poverty and low education in Kentucky’s rural regions in contrast to the more prosperous counties near Louisville, Lexington and Cincinnati…”
• Rural America gets even more sparsely populated, By Doug Smith and Richard Fausset, December 15, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “The majority of the nation’s sparsely populated rural counties lost even more residents in the last decade, though some of the counties - particularly those in the Mountain West - saw population gains that may be the result of retirees striking out for areas that are both scenic and affordable, according to a Times analysis of figures released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday. The data offer the first detailed portrait of heartland America in a decade, covering the roughly 1,400 counties of fewer than 20,000 people. The numbers also show a growing Latino presence in these counties…”
• Poverty in small towns increasing, By Michelle Dupler, December 15, 2010, Tacoma News Tribune: “Poverty rates in small towns in the Mid-Columbia tended to be higher than state and national averages between 2005 and last year, according to new U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Tuesday. Mesa, for example, had 53 percent of the Franklin County town’s estimated 472 residents lived in poverty, and had an annual median income of just $27,083. The national median income estimated for last year was $49,777, with 14.3 percent of people living in poverty…”
• Poverty rise in region’s small towns ’sobering’, By Louise Knott Ahern, December 15, 2010, Lansing State Journal: “Mid-Michigan’s small towns have not been spared the skyrocketing poverty rates that have plagued larger urban areas for the past several years, according to data released Tuesday. The American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that even though towns such as Grand Ledge, Williamston and Eaton Rapids have seen only modest population changes since 2000, the number of families living beneath the federal poverty level has risen drastically. In Williamston, for example, the number of families living below poverty has risen from 6.4 percent in 2000 to an average of 15.5 percent over the past five years, according to the report…”

• Census data reveal pockets of wealth and poverty, By Sabrina Tavernise and Robert Gebeloff, December 14, 2010, New York Times: “The three places in the country with the highest median household income are all in Virginia, according to census datareleased on Tuesday, while those with the highest rates of poverty are in four American Indian reservations, all in South Dakota. The Virginia counties of Fairfax and Loudoun and the city of Falls Church had the highest median income, according to the data, which spans 2005 to 2009. Falls Church was the highest at $113,313, up by 17 percent from 2000. The lowest median income was in Owsley County, Ky., at $18,869. Of the five counties with poverty rates higher than 39 percent, four contain or are in American Indian reservations in South Dakota. The fifth, Willacy County, Tex., is on the Gulf Coast. The data is from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which samples 1 in 10 Americans on a variety of social, economic and demographic topics. It is the single largest release of data in the bureau’s history, with 11 billion individual estimates covering 670,000 geographic locations. It gives details on the characteristics of American society based on surveys, and is separate from the 2010 Census, which will provide a precise count of all Americans…”
• New data to shed light on Minn. towns, big city neighborhoods, By Elizabeth Dunbar, December 14, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “There’s a reason the new school is being built on the other side of town, and that the bus route map looks the way it does — planners studied census data to better understand where and how we live and work. The U.S. Census Bureau collects data through the ongoing American Community Survey that inform decisions about public infrastructure. For the first time Tuesday, officials will release survey data collected over a five-year period, replacing the information that used to be collected on the long form of the census once every 10 years…”
• Black segregation in US drops to lowest in century, Associated Press, December 14, 2010, Washington Post: “America’s neighborhoods took large strides toward racial integration in the last decade as blacks and whites chose to live near each other at the highest levels in a century. Still, segregation in many parts of the U.S. persisted, with Hispanics in particular turning away from whites. A broad range of 2009 census data released Tuesday also found a mixed economic picture, with the poverty rate swinging wildly among counties from 4 percent to more than 40 percent as the nation grappled with a housing boom and bust. Just three U.S. localities reported median household income of more than $100,000, down from seven in 2000. Segregation among blacks and whites increased in one-fourth of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, compared to nearly one-half for Hispanics…”
• Census data out today may offer skewed view of south Louisiana, By Michelle Krupa, December 14, 2010, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “Today marks a milestone for the U.S. Census with the release this morning of the first-ever set of five-year estimates of the American Communities Survey, which has replaced the ‘long form’ questionnaire that for decades went to select households as part of the decennial census. It includes information collected between Jan. 1, 2005 and Dec. 31, 2009, on 72 topics that go beyond the basic data contained in the Census short form, such as citizenship status, geographic mobility, means of transportation to work and educational status. Because of the volume of data available, estimates will be provided for every state, county, city and town in the country — more than 670,000 distinct geographic areas…”
• U.S. Census: Impoverished areas growing in El Paso County, By Maria St. Louis-Sanchez, December 14, 2010, Colorado Springs Gazette: “The poor in El Paso County are growing in number, and more areas of the region are considered impoverished, according to U.S. Census data released Tuesday. Data released by the 2005-2009 American Community Survey show that 24 of the county’s 111 neighborhoods have an estimated 20 percent or more of their population living below the poverty level. In 2000, there were seven neighborhoods with a poverty level that high. In September, American Community Survey data revealed that in 2009, the poverty rate in El Paso County was at its highest point in five years at 11.5 percent. In 2009, the federal poverty level was $22,050 for a family of four. The 2005-2009 American Community Survey are five-year estimates of the population throughout the United States. The estimates mark the first time that neighborhood-level information has been released by the U.S. Census since 2000. The estimates are not part of the 2010 Census, which will have its first release of data on Dec. 21…”

Los Angeles confronts homelessness reputation, By Adam Nagourney, December 12, 2010, New York Times: “It was just past dusk in the upscale enclave of Brentwood as a homeless man, wrapped in a tattered gray blanket, stepped into a doorway to escape a light rain, watching the flow of people on their way to the high-end restaurants that lined the street. Across town in Hollywood the next morning, homeless people were wandering up and down Sunset Boulevard, pushing shopping carts and slumped at bus stops. More homeless men and women could be found shuffling along the boardwalks of Venice and Santa Monica, while a few others were spotted near the heart of Beverly Hills, the very symbol of Los Angeles wealth. And, as always, San Julian Street, the infamous center of Skid Row on the south edge of downtown Los Angeles, was teeming: a small city of people were making the street their home in a warm December sun, waiting for one of the many missions there to serve a meal. At a time when cities across the country have made significant progress over the past decade in reducing the number of homeless, in no small part by building permanent housing, the problem seems intractable in the County of Los Angeles…”

Fewer cities report decline in unemployment rate, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), December 7, 2010, Washington Post: “Unemployment fell in more than half of the nation’s largest cities in October while rising in nearly a third, offering a mixed outlook for hiring. The jobless rate dropped in 200 of the 372 largest metro areas in October, compared to the previous month, the Labor Department said Tuesday. It rose in 108 and remained the same in 64. That’s the fewest areas showing improvement since July. In September, unemployment fell in 321 metro areas and rose in only 31…”

Poverty moves into the suburbs, By Ann Belser, November 7, 2010, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Life in America’s suburbs, isn’t all commuting and scout meetings anymore, if it ever was. Among its many side effects, the Great Recession brought into stark relief the fact that poverty has taken root in the nation’s suburban areas. Once seen as a problem only in urban and rural areas, the strains caused by lost jobs or low income employment are now shared by neighborhoods that were often created as havens from a city’s ills. ‘It’s a longer historical trend where you’re seeing cities and suburbs moving closer together, not just in unemployment but also in poverty and food stamps,’ said Emily Garr, a research assistant at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. On Friday, the government announced the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 9.6 percent and, if this month’s data pans out the same as others have since the recession’s start, the growth of suburban unemployment will continue to outpace that of urban unemployment. The change is not readily apparent in a year-over-year comparison, but it stands out when looking at data over the last two decades…”

• Suburbs take hit as US poverty climbs in downturn, By Hope Yen (AP), October 7, 2010, Washington Post: “The American suburb is no longer a refuge from poverty in cities. A pair of analyses by the nonprofit Brookings Institution paints a bleak economic picture for the 100 largest metropolitan areas over the past decade and in coming years, and finds that suburbs now are home to one-third of the nation’s poor, and rising. The study of census data finds that since 2000, the number of poor people in the suburbs jumped by 37.4 percent to 13.7 million. The growth rate of suburban poverty is more than double that of cities and higher than the national rate of 26.5 percent…”
• Poverty on rise in ‘burbs, By Francine Knowles, October 7, 2010, Chicago Sun-Times: “The number of poor in Chicago’s suburbs jumped in the last decade, and social service agencies are overwhelmed, a study from University of Chicago researchers found. Most suburbs examined experienced more than 50 percent increases in the number of poor from 2000 to 2008. In Aurora, the number jumped nearly 62 percent to 19,479, and in Joliet, it rose 39.5 percent to 15,266. Meanwhile, more than half of suburban Chicago nonprofits surveyed reported a loss in a key revenue source last year, the study released today showed. One in four reduced services, and 30 percent laid off full-time and part-time staff. More funding cuts are anticipated. The study, prepared for the Brookings Institution, looked at 30 Chicago suburbs…”
• Poverty hits high among city suburbs, By Troy Anderson, Staff Writer, October 6, 2010, Contra Costa Times: “Once a haven where people moved to pursue the American Dream, the nation’s suburbs are experiencing a dramatic spike in poverty among working-age residents, straining social services traditionally geared to the inner-city poor. A pair of analyses released today by the nonprofit Brookings Institution paint a bleak economic picture for the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, where the poverty rate is projected to hit 15 percent in the coming years. More startling, however, was a finding that suburbs - including those in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys - are bearing the brunt of the increase…”

Unemployment rate drops in two-thirds of metro areas in August, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), September 29, 2010, USA Today: “Unemployment fell in nearly two-thirds of the nation’s 372 largest metro areas last month, the broadest improvement since May. The jobless rate dropped in 230 cities in August, the Labor Department said Wednesday. It rose in 95 cities and was flat in 47. That’s an improvement from the previous month, when rates fell in only 152 areas. Nationwide, unemployment ticked up in August to 9.6% from 9.5% the previous month. Businesses added a net total of 67,000 jobs, but about twice as many temporary census jobs ended. The metro report does not adjust its figures to take into account seasonal trends, such as high unemployment among agricultural workers before fall harvests begin. As a result, the figures can differ from the national trend and can be volatile from month to month…”

• Saying no to ‘I do,’ with the economy in mind, By Erik Eckholm, September 28, 2010, New York Times: “The United States crossed an important marital threshold in 2009, with the number of young adults who have never married surpassing, for the first time in more than a century, the number who were married. A long-term decline in marriage accelerated during the severe recession, according to new data from the Census Bureau, with more couples postponing marriage and often choosing to cohabit without tying the knot…”
• D.C., suburbs show disturbing increases in childhood poverty, By Carol Morello and Dan Keating, September 29, 2010, Washington Post: “Three out of 10 children in the nation’s capital were living in poverty last year, with the number of poor African American children rising at a breathtaking rate, according to census statistics released Tuesday. Among black children in the city, childhood poverty shot up to 43 percent, from 36 percent in 2008 and 31 percent in 2007. That was a much sharper increase than the two percentage-point jump, to 36 percent, among poor black children nationwide last year…”
• Census figures in region show poor getting poorer, By Alfred Lubrano and Dylan Purcell, September 29, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “The poor got poorer and the well-off didn’t get any better in the Philadelphia region in 2009, according to U.S. census figures released Tuesday. Philadelphia retained its unwanted position as the poorest among the country’s 10 largest cities, with a poverty rate of 25 percent. Making a bad situation worse, the number of children in poverty under age 18 in the city fell to one in three…”
• Census says recession woes less severe here, By Gary Rotstein, September 29, 2010, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “The economic downturn has not spared the Pittsburgh region, but household data released by the U.S. Census Bureau Tuesday offered additional evidence that the hardships have been less severe than for the nation as a whole. The poverty rate within the seven-county metropolitan area worsened from 12.2 percent in 2008 to 12.3 percent in 2009, according to the American Community Survey, compared with a more drastic change from 13.3 percent to 14.3 percent for the U.S. overall. Pennsylvania had a poverty rate of 12.5 percent last year, compared with 12.3 percent in 2008…”
• Mass. buoyed in recession, data indicate, By Maria Sacchetti, September 29, 2010, Boston Globe: “Massachusetts appeared to weather the recession better than other states last year, according to census figures released yesterday, with stable poverty rates and stagnant annual income. But analysts disagree about whether the figures reflect a strong economy or instead mask more serious troubles statewide…”
• Census shows recession hit broad swath of R.I., By Paul Edward Parker and Paul Davis, September 29, 2010, Providence Journal: “New U.S. Census data show that the deep recession hit Rhode Islanders from all walks of life hard in 2009, as unemployment reached a record high 12.7 percent during the biggest economic slowdown since the Great Depression. More Rhode Island families lived in poverty. More grandparents provided inexpensive childcare for their grandchildren. More workers joined carpools to save money on the daily commute. No groups escaped. Even couples planning families put off the births of their children until better times…”
• In hard times, more Middle TN families share a roof, By Chris Echegaray, September 29, 2010, The Tennessean: “The recession refilled a Brentwood couple’s empty nest - a common effect according to newly released census data. Linda and Carlos Reyes’ two adult children came back home last year because of the poor economy. Their son was moving between his parents’ Brentwood home and Alabama, where his wife had just lost her job as a teacher. The daughter, to save money on gas, often would stay with her parents, and still does…”
• Census snapshot shows bleak picture for many Oklahomans amid recession, By Paul Monies, September 29, 2010, The Oklahoman: “More children had health insurance coverage last year even as the number of adults without coverage remained flat in Oklahoma, according to Census Bureau estimates released Tuesday. Meanwhile, poverty rates increased, and median household income declined last year as Oklahoma continued to feel the effects of a recession that began in late 2007. The share of households on food stamps in the state rose to 12.1 percent last year, up from 10.9 percent in 2008…”
• Number of poor in Tulsa, Oklahoma rises, By Curtis Killman, September 29, 2010, Tulsa World: “The percentage of people living in poverty increased in the state and Tulsa from 2008 to 2009, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Tuesday. Nearly one in five Tulsans reported incomes in 2009 below the poverty level. The estimated 19.5 percent of Tulsans with poverty-level incomes in 2009 reversed a two-year decline in the number of poor in the city, according to Census Bureau statistics…”
• Poverty on rise in Lincoln; researchers say survey may be misleading, By Mark Andersen, September 28, 2010, Lincoln Journal Star: “The number of Lincoln households earning less than $10,000 last year increased 52 percent from 2008, according to census survey data released Tuesday. That jump may mark a dramatic increase in Lincoln poverty, but then again, other dramatic swings in the survey suggest its findings should be regarded with caution…”
• In tough economic times, Coloradans go back to school, census stats show, By David Olinger, September 29, 2010, Denver Post: “In hard times, college enrollment programs can experience great times - particularly those that teach specific job skills. While Colorado residents suffered wage cuts and job losses during a national recession, the number of them paying to go to college grew, according to census survey data released Tuesday. In Denver, enrollment in college and graduate schools jumped by nearly 10,000 students in one year, to about 47,000 citywide, the 2009 American Community Survey estimated. Leading the boom was Community College of Denver, a job-oriented school whose student population nearly doubled in two years…”
• Sacramento area incomes drop 6%, to lowest level in a decade, By Phillip Reese, September 29, 2010, Sacramento Bee: “State worker furloughs, an anemic construction industry and widespread layoffs last year pushed Sacramento-area household incomes to their lowest level in at least a decade, census figures released Tuesday show. The region’s median household income - the figure in the middle of a ranked list of household incomes - was $57,361 during 2009, down 6 percent from 2008, after adjusting for inflation. That’s a bigger fall than the statewide drop of 3 percent…”
• New data offers proof: The recession hurts, By Jeannie Kever, September 28, 2010, Houston Chronicle: “Stop us if you’ve heard this before: Household income is down. Poverty levels are up. People who still have jobs are working fewer hours. Census data released Tuesday confirmed what most Americans already knew. ‘It is very clear how extensive the economic difficulties are,’ said Steve Murdock, the former state demographer who now is on the faculty at Rice University. ‘Health insurance. Job hours worked. Poverty rates. Income. Those are all in the wrong direction in terms of what we’d like to see for America.’ The trends held true at all levels in the 2009 American Community Survey data, which offers a snapshot of the nation’s economic and demographic status. The first results from the 2010 Census will be released later this year…”
• More people living in poverty in Austin, survey finds, By Juan Castillo, September 28, 2010, Austin-American Statesman: “Nearly 1 out of every 5 Austinites lived in poverty in 2009, an increase from the previous year, the U.S. Census Bureau said Tuesday. Among the most striking increases in poverty rates were among Austin’s children. According to figures from the bureau’s American Community Survey, 27 percent of related children under 18 and 31.5 percent of related children under 5 lived in poverty in 2009 - 5 percent and 6 percent increases, respectively, from 2008…”
• 1 in 5 Tampa Bay area kids live in poverty, census says, By Kevin Wiatrowski, September 29, 2010, Tampa Tribune: “The latest government estimates, released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau, show the number of people living in poverty has been growing steadily since 2006 in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Polk counties. Children have been hit the hardest in the Bay area, where about one in five people younger than 18 live in poverty, according to census estimates. Seniors, on the other had, remain insulated from the region’s growing poverty. In the Tampa Bay area, fewer than 10 percent have fallen into poverty, while fewer than 1 percent, on average, lack health insurance, Census figures show…”
• Census snapshot of South Florida: Poverty up, wealth down, By Douglas Hanks, September 29, 2010, Miami Herald: “Housing values crashed. Renting became more popular. Much of the population slipped a rung down the wealth ladder. And Miami seems to be booming. A deluge of Census data released Tuesday crystalized some of the trends under way as South Florida reckons with a wrenching economic downturn, a tepid recovery and a transformed real estate market. One side effect: Thousands of cheap urban condos built during the boom are now attracting renters and bargain hunters. The city of Miami, the center of the nation’s condo building binge, saw its population surge 25 percent this year to about 433,000, according to the numbers…”

• Census shows rising poverty, falling incomes in Madison, Dane County, By Steven Verburg, September 28, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “Household income in Dane County and Madison dropped more than twice as much as it did nationally in 2009, and the proportion of rich and poor increased while middle-income households dwindled, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. The data also showed rising levels of poverty, including among children, in the city and county. Experts said the numbers demonstrate the broad impact of the recent recession - described as the country’s worst since World War II but which officially ended in June 2009…”
• Milwaukee now fourth poorest city in nation, By Bill Glauber and Ben Poston, September 28, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Milwaukee emerged as America’s fourth-most impoverished big city in 2009, as the Great Recession rippled across the city and state, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Tuesday. Milwaukee’s poverty rate reached 27%, up from 23.4% in the previous year. Only Detroit (36.4%), Cleveland (35%) and Buffalo (28.8%) had higher poverty rates among cities with populations greater than 250,000. Milwaukee was ranked 11th in 2008. An estimated 158,245 Milwaukeeans lived in poverty last year. For a family of four with two adults and two children, the poverty threshold was an annual income of $21,954. What’s more, nearly 4 in 10 children in Milwaukee were considered poor, meaning an estimated 62,432 children lived in poverty last year, up from 49,952 in 2008…”
• Poverty rises slightly in Chicago area, By Dahleen Glanton and Lisa Black, September 29, 2010, Chicago Tribune: “Poverty inched higher in the Chicago area in the midst of the recession, pulling city and suburban families that once were considered middle class into the ranks of the poor, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Like the rest of the country, the Chicago area experienced heavy job losses, home foreclosures and lower median household incomes from 2006 to 2009, which forced some people out of their comfortable lifestyles into homeless shelters, food banks and unemployment lines…”
• Census reveals ‘new poor’ in many Twin Cities suburbs, By Jeremy Olson, September 28, 2010, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “Poverty and joblessness rose sharply in many Twin Cities suburbs last year, according to U.S. census estimates released Tuesday, along with a rise in what advocates call the “new poor” — families whose financial stability has crumbled in the economic recession. In Anoka County, for example, the unemployment rate shot up to 6.8 percent in 2009 from 3.3 percent in 2008. Child poverty in Dakota County more than doubled, to 8.2 percent in 2009, while the rate of uninsured residents increased in Washington County from 5 percent in 2008 to 6.7 percent in 2009…”
• Census survey data: Minnesotans’ incomes took a hit in 2009, By Elizabeth Dunbar, September 28, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “Minnesotans’ incomes took a hit and more residents were living in poverty in 2009 as the economic recession continued, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The estimated median household income in Minnesota fell to $55,616 compared to $57,288 in 2008, according to the American Community Survey data, which is calculated from surveys conducted with 2 percent of the U.S. population…”
• Michigan sees sharpest income plunge in nation, By Mike Wilkinson, September 29, 2010, Detroit News: “For most families in Michigan, the long-running recession has meant a simple, unrelenting truth: living with less. And census data released on Tuesday shows how much less — the state’s median household income fell by more than $12,000 over the last decade — the equivalent of trimming $1,000 from a family’s monthly budget. The drop was stunning in both its size and its singularity: No other state came close to losing the estimated 21.3 percent of its median income between 2000 and 2009, and no state endured the 6.5 percent drop seen from 2008 to 2009…”
• Poverty rate jumps locally, By Bill Bush and Rita Price, September 29, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “About half of all pay in Franklin County last year ended up in households with incomes north of $95,000, while those that made less than $20,000 got just over 3percent of the payout, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released yesterday. The comparison, based on cutting the county into fifths by income and looking at the households in the top and bottom 20 percent, comes amid troubling news about poverty and household incomes. The economic downturn pushed tens of thousands of additional Franklin County residents below the poverty line last year. The percentage of county residents living in poverty shot to 18.2 percent in 2009, from 15 percent the year before…”
• Census shows Cleveland is the second-poorest city in the United States, By Robert L. Smith, September 29, 2010, Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Hard times came to every corner of Northeast Ohio during a historic recession, as unemployment and its consequences rippled across the city and suburbs. The hammer of despair landed hardest in Cleveland, where one out of every three people lived in poverty at the end of 2009, making Cleveland the second-poorest big city in America — thank you, Detroit — according to estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The region weathered the Great Recession better than some other metro areas, but poverty rose in every outlying county except Medina, and many felt the pangs of hunger and fear for the first time…”

Unemployment rises in 75 pct of metro areas, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), July 28, 2010, Washington Post: “The unemployment rate in about three-quarters of the nation’s largest metro areas rose last month as nearly one million teenagers entered the work force looking for summer jobs. The Labor Department said Wednesday that the unemployment rate rose in 291 of 374 areas in June from May. It fell in 55 areas and was flat in 28. That reverses the trend of the previous three months, when joblessness fell in most metro areas. But the report does not adjust the figures to take into account seasonal trends, such as high school or college students looking for work during the summer. As a result the figures tend to be volatile from month to month…”

Study looks at HIV and poverty, By Ron Winslow and Betsy McKay, July 18, 2010, Wall Street Journal: “The prevalence of HIV infection among heterosexuals in U.S. inner cities constitutes a generalized epidemic, a new U.S. study says. The report, based on interviews of more than 9,000 people not considered at high risk of HIV/AIDS who live in high-poverty areas of 23 U.S. cities, found that 2.1% of that population was infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. That figure is more than double the 1% considered the threshold for a generalized epidemic as defined by the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS. And it’s about 20 times as high as the prevalence of the virus among heterosexuals in the general U.S. population. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which ran the study, says the findings reveal the strongest evidence yet of a link between poverty and HIV infection. People in low-income communities lack access to medical care and spread the disease more readily because they are unaware that they are infected and therefore not being treated, the researchers said…”

Study: Poverty decreases use of TIF, June 17, 2010, St. Louis Business Journal: “Rich cities are getting richer by using tax-increment financing (TIF) and poor cities are missing out, a new study shows. That could have a significant impact, considering more than half (56 percent) of all Missouri cities with a population of greater than 2,500 have adopted at least one tax increment financing (TIF) project, according to the study. For every 1 percent increase in the poverty rate, the likelihood of a TIF having been approved decreases by 9 percent, among Missouri cities surveyed. ‘This may suggest that the law be amended to target TIFs to locations that meet objective measures of economic disadvantage, such as poverty, income or unemployment,’ Kenneth Thomas, one of the study’s authors, said in a statement. He is associate professor of political science at University of Missouri-St. Louis. ‘As it stands, rich cities are getting richer by using TIFs,’ he added…”

Unemployment drops in 90 pct. of metro areas, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), June 2, 2010, San Francisco Chronicle: “Unemployment rates fell in April for more than 90 percent of the nation’s 372 largest metro areas as hiring picked up around the country. The Labor Department says the jobless rate dropped in 346 areas last month. It rose in only 12 and remained flat in 14. That’s much better than March, when unemployment fell in 257 areas and rose in 89. Much of the improvement was seen in Midwestern regions with significant manufacturing operations. Manufacturers, who added 44,000 jobs nationwide in April, are benefiting from increasing overseas sales and efforts by retailers and other U.S. companies to restock their warehouses…”

• Nation’s suburbs show increasing diversity, Brookings report finds, By Carol Morello, May 9, 2010, Washington Post: “Ozzie and Harriet, R.I.P. The idealized vision of suburbia as a homogenous landscape of prosperity built around the nuclear family took another hit over the past decade, as suburbs became home to more poor people, immigrants, minorities, senior citizens and households with no children, according to a Brookings Institution report to be released Sunday. Although the suburbs remain a destination of choice for families with children, nuclear families are outnumbered. Nationwide, 21 percent of American families are composed of married couples with children. Their ranks declined in more than half of the suburbs, including those surrounding Washington. Even in fast-growing Loudoun County, only 36 percent of households were married couples with children, census data show. In Fairfax County, it was 27 percent; Montgomery County, 26 percent; and Prince George’s County, 18 percent…”
• Social changes shatter regional stereotypes, study finds, By David Goldstein, May 8, 2010, Seattle Times: “Forget about the Midwest, Kansas City. You’re now part of the ‘New Heartland.’ So are you, Charleston, S.C., even with all your Spanish moss and Southern charm, and you too, Portland, Ore., way out there on the Pacific Coast. These three metropolitan areas couldn’t be farther apart geographically. Demographically, however, they might have more in common than with some regional neighbors, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Social changes in the past decade, especially the increase in racial and ethnic minorities, are scrambling regional stereotypes and altering the traditional portrait of the nation…”

Population study finds change in the suburbs, By Sam Roberts, May 8, 2010, New York Times: “As the first decade of the 21st century comes to a close, more black, Asian, Hispanic, foreign-born and poor people live in the suburbs of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas than in their primary cities. ‘Several trends in the 2000s further put to rest the old perceptions of cities as declining, poor, minority places set amid young, white, wealthy suburbs,’ a report released Sunday by the Brookings Institution concluded. That demographic inversion was accompanied by another first since the 2000 census: In the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, black, Hispanic and Asian residents constitute a majority of residents younger than 18 - presaging a benchmark that the nation as a whole is projected to reach in just over a decade…”

Unemployment falls in a majority of US cities, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), April 28, 2010, Washington Post: “Unemployment rates fell or remained level in three-quarters of the 372 largest metropolitan areas, a sign that the economic recovery is widespread. The Labor Department said Wednesday the jobless rate dropped in 69 percent of metro areas last month from February. It rose in 24 percent of large cities and remained the same in the rest. That’s an improvement from February, when the unemployment rate decreased in 51 percent of metro areas and increased in one-third. The report follows other recent encouraging news about jobs. Employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the government said earlier this month, the most significant gain in three years. Still, the growth wasn’t enough to bring down the unemployment rate, which remained at 9.7 percent for the third straight month…”