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Economy
Buffalo named third-poorest city in U.S.
2009-09-30
From the department of Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.
Nearly a third of Buffalo's residents eke out an existence below the poverty level, making it the third-poorest city in America, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released Tuesday morning.
City, or metropolitan area? That can skew the results.
The 2008 American Community Survey found that 30.3 percent of the people living in Buffalo were beneath the federal poverty line last year.
What is the median age in the poorest cities versus the average and richest -- or at any rate least poor -- among them? Were I doing this survey, I'd have put in questions to capture that information, or at least drill down in the data to understand the numbers better.
The official poverty threshold varies, depending on the size of a household and the ages of its members. The line for a family of two adults and two children, for example, was $21,834 in 2008.

Detroit is the poorest city in America, with 33.3 percent of its residents below the poverty level. Cleveland comes second at 30.5 percent, and Buffalo is the only other major city above 30 percent.

Anchorage has the lowest poverty rate among the nation's major cities, defined as those with populations of 250,000 or more. Just 6.4 percent of Anchorage's residents were living in poverty a year ago.

The American Community Survey is an annual program designed to generate data during the years between the Census Bureau's decennial headcounts. The bureau has been releasing 2008 ACS data in stages this month.
Then no doubt my questions could have been answered, based on the last census if nothing more, but the journalist couldn't be bothered to question the bald statement issued by the Census Bureau.
The following are the bottom ten cities in America with at least 250,000 residents, ranked according to their 2008 poverty rates:

1. Detroit, 33.3% in poverty
2. Cleveland, 30.5% in poverty
3. Buffalo, 30.3% in poverty
4. Newark, 26.1% in poverty
5. Miami, 25.6% in poverty
6. Fresno, 25.5% in poverty
7. Cincinnati, 25.1% in poverty
8. Toledo, 24.7% in poverty
9. El Paso, 24.3% in poverty
10. Philadelphia, 24.1% in poverty
Posted by:Fred

#20  http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg2064.cfm

Thanks, Woozle Uneter9007, I bookmarked it.

mom, ditto. Formerly temporary daughter and part-time daughter, in my case. Not that either was technically poor, it's just their parents were, for various reasons, dangerously incapable.
Posted by: trailing wife   2009-09-30 23:27  

#19  Yes, our poor have more resources than other countries' poor. They're still poor, they're still trapped in an ugly mess, and as noted elsewhere on the Burg, certain politicians are doing their damnedest to keep people there.

People look at obese poor people and say, "They're fat, so they can't be hungry." This is false.

People here on the Burg talk about consequences of poor choices. I have had some opportunity to mentor people who have no clue how to make good choices in the first place. I won't take up Fred's bandwidth with the details; but I have seen people, when given even a little direction and support, take control of their choices and make real progress.



Posted by: mom   2009-09-30 23:21  

#18  All centers for the future OWG-NWO, NAU = NORAM FREE TRADE ZONES.

Multi-State, Multi-Natinal, Multi/Trans-Sovereign.

But I digress .......
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2009-09-30 19:46  

#17  How does our 'poverty' level rank against that of, say, Mali or Bangladesh?

The Heritage Foundation examined this subject...just how poor are America's poor?...a couple of years ago.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg2064.cfm

Posted by: Woozle Uneter9007   2009-09-30 19:09  

#16  re #12: mom, have you ever been to India? There are LOTS of very poor people there. There are also very few fat people.
"Poor" people in America are usually much richer than poor people in other countries.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia   2009-09-30 18:07  

#15   Seeing a pattern here, people? Cities on Lake Erie. Wonder what the common issue is

Oh Yo me an since all the polluting industries wer run out of the country?
All around the great lakes areas?

Why, Why, You POLLUTER, how dare you use FACTS against us RIGHTIOUS GREENIES, the HOLY Obama will Provide.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2009-09-30 17:48  

#14  Using income level without reference to cost of living really scews the results.

When you do that, El Paso and Miami will probably fall out of the bottom 10, Newark will probably be the worst (with a NYC cost of living), and Anchorage would fall out of the top 10 (extremely high cost of living in Alaska).

I bet LA would fall into bottom 10 adjusted for cost of living.
Posted by: Frozen Al   2009-09-30 15:13  

#13  How many of the cities have DEMocrat mayors?
Posted by: airandee   2009-09-30 13:56  

#12  Parabellum, you get high rates of obesity among the poor for the following reasons:
1. A lot of starch in the diet for families who have a low food budget;
2. Ignorance about reading food labels for nutritional value;
3. Ignorance about how to plan a balanced meal.
4. Crummy schools that, in their efforts to teach health and nutrition, don't do any better than they do with core subjects.
5. Supermarket chains that sell their crummier fruit in urban markets because the suburbanites won't buy anything with a little ding in it.

I once tried to explain to a lady in the supermarket that the bottled fruit drink she was buying had no food value, and that she could stretch her food stamps further if she bought a certain brand of inexpensive frozen juice concentrate. She didn't get it. It was all "juice" to her.

We had a neighbor family who never had any food in the house; the refrigerator was unplugged and the mom bought a lot of peanut butter and pizza and chips. The two daughters came over to my house a lot. I taught one of them how to sew, and I taught both of them a few cooking skills. I gave them permission to get snacks out of my fridge, and they chose apples and carrots every time. We went through a lot of apples and carrots.

Posted by: mom   2009-09-30 12:08  

#11  Well, Glenmore, if you check the spike in crime in Houston following the post-Katrina diaspora you'd figured a good chunk of the destructive and non-productive elements found new and far more fertile hunting grounds and less reason to return to the ravaged pickings back in New Orleans.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-09-30 11:45  

#10  New Orleans has moved from last place a few years ago to well above the national average now. Presumably all that Katrina insurance and government aid money cycling through the local economy. Thanks, America.
Posted by: Glenmore   2009-09-30 11:27  

#9  This is why they call it the rust belt. Since WWII there has been a smart-money diaspora from these once-proud cities to lands w/better climates, economies, business prospects, governments and football teams.
Posted by: regular joe   2009-09-30 11:27  

#8  Throw in the Donks and the left's unwilling to acknowledge human free will [to make bad choices] that undermines planning and resource allocation. The proverb stands - you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Just don't drag everyone else down for those who choose destructive or dead end life styles. Wealth or poverty doesn't make one inherently good or bad. It's one's choices that do.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-09-30 09:46  

#7  Seems to be a rough trend... The longer the area has been under Democrat leadership, the higher the percentage of poverty.

Is it the Democrats' "punish achievement" that drive the "rich" away, or their 'subsidize failure' that keeps the "poor" poor?
Posted by: abu do you love    2009-09-30 09:29  

#6  How the hell can anyone afford to be impoverished in Miami?

They have their Liberty City. Not the one in GTA, but the one featured sometimes in A&E's The First 48 (Hours) [reality homicide investigations].
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-09-30 09:27  

#5  Huh. Toledo's there at eighth. Seeing a pattern here, people? Cities on Lake Erie. Wonder what the common issue is. Although I'm pretty sure that some of Ohio's other problem cities aren't there just because they fell under the 250k threshold - Youngstown springs to mind.

Miami? How the hell can anyone afford to be impoverished in Miami?
Posted by: Mitch H.   2009-09-30 08:44  

#4  ..Mali or Bangladesh?

Or Haiti. Or for that matter what is the standard of poverty in Buffalo compared to poverty in Gallup, New Mexico or on the Sioux Reservation in the Dakotas. Wonder how many in Buffalo would want to swap places with those in poverty in the invisible flyover hinterlands.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-09-30 08:39  

#3  recently saw a stat that the 'poorer' you are, the more obese.

think it was being used to spin more welfare dollars. :(
Posted by: abu do you love    2009-09-30 08:32  

#2  
And what percentage of these folks "in poverty" are overweight?
Posted by: Parabellum   2009-09-30 08:23  

#1  How does our 'poverty' level rank against that of, say, Mali or Bangladesh?
Posted by: no mo uro   2009-09-30 05:59  

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