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Title: Losing Ground: Income and Poverty in Upstate New York, 19802000

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2004

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Abstract: FindingsA study of income and poverty data for Upstate New York finds that:Personal income in Upstate grew at just half the national rate in the 1990s, and by 2000 lagged the country by 11 percent. Over half of Upstates meager income growth was accounted for by increases in government transfer payments from such sources as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and the earned income tax credit. - Hour for hour, Upstate workers receive lower wages than people of similar age, race, sex, and educational backgrounds nationwide. Upstates workers also work fewer hours, and a smaller share of Upstate adults participate in the workforce, contributing to Upstates comparatively low wages per capita. - Upstates highest-income households earn substantially lower incomes than the national average. Upstates 80th-percentile householdwhose income is higher than 80 percent but lower than 20 percent of all households earned about $74,300 in Upstate in 1999, compared with over $81,100 nationwide. - Upstates lowest income households experienced little income growth in the 1990s. These households saw slow relative earnings growth and a substantial decrease in welfare income over the decade so that by 1999, their income had fallen from about 8 percent above the national average to about 1 percent below it. - Upstate poverty rates grew for families, individuals, and children during the 1990s, while they decreased for all three of these groupings nationwide. Traditionally a low-poverty region, by 2000 Upstates poverty rate was 11 percent, closing in on the national average of 12.4 percent. - Concentrated poverty is on the rise in Upstate even as it declines acrossthe nation. The share of concentrated poverty neighborhoods in the United States, and the share of poor households living in such neighborhoods, dropped in the 1990s. The opposite was true for Upstate.Upstate has two income problems requiring two sets of responses. Policies are needed to create better income opportunities for well-educated workers, who otherwise leave the region. Also, policies are needed that will directly improve the income of low-income households and low-wage workers and reduce their residential concentration in Upstate cities.

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Authors: Christopherson, Susan; Pendall, Rolf

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Institution: The Brookings Institution

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Publisher Location: Washington D.C.

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Migration and Immigration, Poverty and Welfare, Race and Ethnicity

Countries: United States