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…”

Polk ranks 5th in U.S. suburban poverty, By Eric Pera, April 11, 2010, Lakeland Ledger: “Polk County has the fifth-highest rate of suburban poverty in the nation, according to a report by the Brookings Institution. The number serves as stark affirmation of what many in the local social services arena have voiced in recent years: the economic downturn has fueled an increase in demand for services. Some community leaders say they don’t doubt the Brookings report, but Polk is on the verge of an economic boom that will lift wages and create more jobs…”

A sight all too familiar in poor neighborhoods, By Erik Eckholm, February 18, 2010, New York Times: “Shantana Smith, a single mother who had not paid rent for three months, watched on a recent morning as men from Eagle Moving carried her tattered furniture to the sidewalk. Bystanders knew too well what was happening. ‘When you see the Eagle movers truck, you know it’s time to get going,’ a neighbor said. On Milwaukee’s impoverished North Side, the mover’s name is nearly as familiar as McDonald’s, because Eagle often accompanies sheriffs on evictions. They haul tenants’ belongings into storage or, as Ms. Smith preferred, leave them outside for tenants to truck away. Here and in swaths of many cities, evictions from rental properties are so common that they are part of the texture of life. New research is showing that eviction is a particular burden on low-income black women, often single mothers, who have an easier time renting apartments than their male counterparts, but are vulnerable to losing them because their wages or public benefits have not kept up with the cost of housing. And evictions, in turn, can easily throw families into cascades of turmoil and debt…”

Database gives snapshot of health in each county, By Lauran Neergaard (AP), February 17, 2010, Washington Post: “Where you live plays a role in your health, and a new report that ranks health factors in each of the nation’s 3,000-plus counties promises to point local policymakers to ways they can help. Looking at each state’s best and worst further illuminates a well-known trend: The least healthy counties tend to be poor and rural, and the healthiest ones tend to be urban or suburban and upper-income. The report - released Wednesday at http://www.countyhealthrankings.org - isn’t the first to examine county-level health. Cancer and access to health care, for example, have long been studied that way. But the new database ties standard measures - general health and the rate of premature death - with more factors that play a role in those outcomes, from smoking, obesity and binge drinking to the unemployment rate, childhood poverty, air pollution and access to grocery stores…”

Hard times tighten vise on the poor; U.S. ranks Toledo as nation’s 8th-most impoverished, By Tom Henry, February 14, 2010, Toledo Blade: “One in four. What does it mean? Every dollar has four quarters. So does every football game. Every gallon of milk and every gallon of gasoline has four quarts. But try to explain what it means to live in a city such as Toledo, where one of every four people now lives below the poverty line. There is no tidy way to package and deliver the answer. The latest U.S. Census Bureau poverty statistics rank Toledo the nation’s eighth most impoverished city, with 24.7 percent of its residents living below the poverty line. That’s nearly twice the national poverty rate of 13.2 percent. Many believe the situation is worse now locally and nationally, given that those Census figures were based on late 2008 data. America’s economic crisis worsened during the first half of 2009…”

• Formula shows why it’s so hard to cut jobless rate, By Jeannine Aversa (AP), February 1, 2010, Janesville Gazette: “The economy’s 5.7 percent growth last quarter - the fastest pace since 2003 - was a step toward shrinking the nation’s 10 percent unemployment rate. There’s just one problem: Growth would have to equal 5 percent for all of 2010 just to lower the average jobless rate for the year by 1 percentage point. And economists don’t think that’s possible. Most analysts say economic activity will slow to 2.5 percent or 3 percent growth for the current quarter as the benefits fade from government stimulus efforts and from companies drawing down less of their stockpiles. That’s why the Federal Reserve and outside economists think it will take until around the middle of the decade to lower the double-digit jobless rate to a more normal 5 or 6 percent…”
• Unemployment rises in most metro areas during December, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), February 3, 2010, Detroit Free Press: “Unemployment rose in most cities and counties in December, signaling that companies remain reluctant to hire even as the economy recovers. The unemployment rate rose in 306 of 372 metro areas, the Labor Department said Tuesday. The rate fell in 41 metro areas and was unchanged in 25. That’s worse than November, when the rate rose in only 154 metro areas, fell in 170 and was unchanged in 48. In all, joblessness topped 10% in 138 metro areas, up from 125 in November but below last year’s peak of 144 areas in June. The highest unemployment rate was in El Centro, Calif., with 27.7%, followed by Merced, Calif., at 19.8%. El Centro is heavily agricultural and has many seasonal farm workers who are frequently unemployed. Its jobless rate is down from 33.1% in August…”

• Poverty growing faster in suburbs, By Frank D. Roylance and Larry Carson, January 21, 2010, Baltimore Sun: “The majority of the poor in the Baltimore region now live in the city’s suburbs for the first time, while the poverty rate in the city has declined, a new study has found. The changing geography of poverty here reflects a national trend, and argues for a more regional strategy on issues ranging from social safety nets to mass transit, the study concludes. ‘The notion of poverty as primarily an urban problem is officially outdated,’ said Elizabeth Kneebone, co-author of a report released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution in Washington. ‘This signals a remarkable shift in the geography of American poverty that will ultimately affect the way we think about and approach poverty alleviation strategies.’ Between 2000 and 2008, the number of people living below the federal poverty line in Baltimore’s suburbs grew by nearly 21,000, while the city saw a decline of more than 24,000 poor. The decline in the city’s poverty rate was the third-largest among the 95 cities examined…”
• New report finds suburban poverty rates soaring in downturn, By Tim Logan, January 20, 2010, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Poverty is moving to the suburbs. And in the recession, it is moving even faster. Those findings are the highlights of a new study out today from the Brookings Institution, which found that the number of people living below the poverty line in American suburbs grew 25 percent in the past eight years, far faster than in central cities that have long housed more than their share of the poor. And it is especially true in St. Louis…”
• Study: More poor living in U.S. suburbs than in cities, By Brandt Williams, January 20, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “According to a new study released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution, there are more poor people living in U.S. suburbs than there are in central cities. Researchers say between 2000 and 2008 the number of poor people living in suburban areas grew nearly five times faster than the amount of poor people in the central cities. Brookings researchers say there are now 1.5 million more poor people living in the suburbs than there are in central cities. However, proportionally speaking, poverty is still more prevalent in urban cores…”

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

• Severe unemployment worsens in cities, By Hibah Yousuf, January 5, 2010, CNNMoney.com: “The number of U.S. metropolitan areas with jobless rates above 15% increased in November, according to government figures released Tuesday, despite the biggest one-month drop in the national rate in more than three years. The Labor Department said 17 of 372 metropolitan areas surveyed suffered unemployment rates of at least 15% last month, up from 15 metro areas in October. National unemployment improved to a seasonally adjusted 10% in November from the 26-year high of 10.2% hit in October. The rate had climbed for 12 out of the previous 13 months before November. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expect the national rate to edge up to 10.1% when the Labor Department releases its December jobs report Friday…”
• Battered midwestern cities see unemployment drop, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), January 5, 2010, Washington Post: “Signs of life among U.S. manufacturers helped lower unemployment rates in much of the industrial Midwest, a Labor Department report Tuesday showed. Still, jobs are likely to remain scarce in the next few months nationwide. Unemployment rates dropped sharply in November in cities such as Peoria, Ill., Elkhart, Ind., and Fort Wayne, Ind., the department’s report said…”

America’s 10 poorest cities, By Joshua Zumbrun, October 19, 2009, ABC News: “The Great Recession is rewriting the rules of American poverty. Data from the Census Bureau, released in September, show that during the first year of the recession, incomes fell farther and poverty leaped higher than during almost any other time in a generation. In 2008, U.S. median income fell to $50,303 from $52,163 in 2007. That 3.6% decline is the largest one-year drop since records begin. The poverty rate increased to 13.2% from 12.5%, meaning the recession has brought 2.6 million more Americans into poverty. The Economic Policy Institute projects that in the next two years, incomes could decline by another $3,000 and poverty could increase by 1.9 percentage points. Just as the recession has changed the map of unemployment, it has redrawn the contours of poverty…”

• Census data show falling income, By Kate Linthicum and DeeDee Correll, September 30, 2009, Los Angeles Times: “Reporting from Los Angeles and Denver - In 2008, the median household income in the United States plummeted 3.6% from the year before, and the percentage of people living in poverty soared to an 11-year high, recently released U.S. Census data reveal. Economists say the bleak news — which they blame on the slew of layoffs that have accompanied the economic downturn — is significant, if not entirely surprising…”
• Poverty in Ohio spreading and getting worse, By Catherine Candisky and Alan Johnson, September 30, 2009, Columbus Dispatch: “Crushing job losses and rising unemployment pushed nearly one in five Marion County residents into poverty last year, the highest rate among the state’s larger counties, according to new U.S. Census statistics. Marion County’s 2008 poverty rate of 19.4 percent represents a jump of more than half in only two years for the county of 66,396 people about an hour north of Columbus…”
• Child poverty in Baltimore declines, By Brent Jones, September 30, 2009, Baltimore Sun: “Despite a decrease in poverty among city children, nearly one in five Baltimore residents were living below federal poverty levels in 2008, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. Census Bureau data showed that 19 percent of Baltimore’s population lived in poverty last year, putting Maryland’s most populous city well above the national rate of 13 percent…”
• Experts say LI rate underestimates level of poverty, By Olivia Winslow, September 30, 2009, Newsday: “Long Island’s poverty rates remained largely unchanged in 2008 from the previous year, continuing to fall well below national and state levels, according to new census data out Tuesday. But experts say the figures likely underestimate the level of poverty here, since the region’s high cost of living is not factored into the federal poverty formula…”
• Public aid need grows in Oklahoma, census finds, By Vallery Brown and Paul Monies, September 29, 2009, The Oklahoman: “Nearly one in four Oklahoma families with children younger than 18 were on some type of public assistance in 2008, according to newly released census estimates. Public assistance includes food stamps and supplemental Social Security income…”
• Requests for help contradict statistics, By Kevin Duggan, September 30, 2009, Fort Collins Coloradoan: “Poverty rates in Larimer County appeared to level off in 2008 after rising sharply in the early part of the decade, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. But information in the bureau’s American Community Survey does not reflect the current level of poverty around the county brought on by the economic downturn and the loss of jobs, say local agencies that work with low-income residents…”
• County hit with sharp rise in level of poverty, By Lori Weisberg, October 1, 2009, San Diego Union-Tribune: “Poverty in San Diego County rose last year to its highest level this decade, fresh evidence of the financial toll the county’s prolonged recession and heavy job losses are taking on the region’s neediest households. In all, nearly 367,000 individuals were living in poverty - almost 46,000 more than a year earlier, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau…”

• US income gap widens as poor take hit in recession, By Hope Yen (AP), September 29, 2009, Houston Chronicle: “The recession has hit middle-income and poor families hardest, widening the economic gap between the richest and poorest Americans as rippling job layoffs ravaged household budgets…”
• Downturn weighs on poor, By Conor Dougherty, September 29, 2009, Wall Street Journal: “Poverty rose in the West and Midwest last year, as slowdowns in housing and manufacturing sent more families below the poverty line, according to a Census Bureau report released Tuesday. The report, part of the agency’s annual American Community Survey, was the latest to measure the recession’s toll on low-income families, after a boom in which low-skilled workers relied on plentiful jobs and overtime — often in construction and retail — to raise their incomes and prospects…”
• D.C. data on poverty grim but unchanged, By Carol Morello and Dan Keating, September 29, 2009, Washington Post: “More than one in four District children were living in poverty last year, even as the region was weathering the recession’s onset better than most metropolitan areas, according to census data released Tuesday. The poverty rates for District children diverged widely by race and ethnicity. The rate was 36 percent for black children; 17 percent for Hispanic children; and 3 percent for non-Hispanic white children. Virginia and Maryland also had large racial and ethnic gaps in childhood poverty, but none as great as in the District. The data was virtually unchanged from 2007…”
• N.Y. poverty data paint mixed picture, By Sam Roberts, September 29, 2009, New York Times: “In a departure from the national picture, family income rose slightly in New York City in 2008 from 2007, and the proportion of poor people was virtually unchanged, according to census figures released Tuesday. Still, the city and surrounding region had its share of grim news: The Bronx remained the country’s poorest urban county; the income gap in Manhattan was still higher than in any other county; and the poverty rate in Connecticut rose faster than in any other state…”
• Poverty hits harder across Front Range, By Burt Hubbard, September 29, 2009, Denver Post: “The poverty rate has escalated this decade among major cities and counties along the Front Range, led by Greeley, where more than one in five residents are poor, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released today. A Denver Post analysis of the census figures also found that child poverty rose at a faster pace than the overall rate, and the economic gap between races widened between 2000 and 2008…”
• Food-stamp use, poverty up in the region, By Alfred Lubrano, September 29, 2009, Philadelphia Inquirer: “The percentage of households receiving food stamps in Philadelphia increased by nearly 3 percentage points between 2007 and 2008 - the period of time marking the start of the recession - according to figures released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau…”
• Recession’s impact reflected in Census data, By Tim Nelson, September 29, 2009, Minnesota Public Radio: “New data from the U.S. Census show more effects of the recession last year. The new numbers from the ongoing American Community Survey indicate Minnesota’s poverty rate inched up slightly last year, from 9.5 to 9.6 percent, although that’s well within the survey’s margin of error. Minnesota is one of nine states with a poverty rate of less than 10 percent…”
• Poverty was dropping before meltdown, By Curtis Killman, September 29, 2009, Tulsa World: “With the exception of the elderly, the percentage of people living in poverty in Tulsa County and across the state declined in 2008, just before the nationwide economic downturn. Tulsa County residents whose income in 2008 was below the poverty level declined from 16.2 percent of the population in 2006 to 13.8 percent in 2008, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Statewide, an estimated 15.9 percent of the population was living in poverty in 2008, compared to a 17 percent poverty rate in 2006…”
• One in 8 Ohioans is in poverty, By David Knox and Katie Byard, September 29, 2009, Akron Beacon Journal: “More than one in eight Ohioans fell below the poverty line last year, pushing the state’s rate to 13.4 percent - the highest recorded in a decade, according to the latest Census figures…”
• Report shows poverty decline, By Sarah Chacko, September 29, 2009, Baton Rouge Advocate: “Louisiana’s poverty rate dropped by a little more than 1 percentage point from 2007 to 2008, according to data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. However, the state still ranks among the worst in the nation with 17.3 percent of the population living below the poverty line…”
• More in Miss. living in poverty, By Natalie Chandler, September 29, 2009, Jackson Clarion-Ledger: “More Mississippians are living in poverty or receiving food stamps as the effects of a national recession persist, according to new census numbers released today and information provided by the state.’We’re almost serving 1 out of every 5 Mississippians right now,’ Cheryl Starkman, director of the Division of Economic Assistance at the Department of Human Services, said of the food stamp program. Census figures show Mississippi was one of a half-dozen states in 2008 with 16 percent or more of its residents living below the poverty level. Mississippi had the highest poverty rate, at 21.2 percent…”
• Recession hammers California’s low-wage workers, By Pete Carey and Mike Swift, September 29, 2009, San Jose Mercury News: “Many of California’s lowest-paid workers appear to have tumbled into the ranks of the poor last year, as the recession hammered people already straining to live in a high-cost state, U.S. census data released today indicates. The nation’s most populous state had a bigger increase in the number of people living below the poverty line than any other state during the first year of the recession. About 160,000 more Californians fell below the poverty line in 2008 than during the three years preceding the start of the recession. But nine states showed a bigger jump in their overall poverty rates…”