Posted: Wednesday, 27 August 2008 5:56AM
NJ Has Some of the Highest and Lowest Incomes
|
MOUNT LAUREL, NJ (AP) -- If the name ``New Jersey'' conjures up images of leafy suburbs that house very high-income families, you're right.
And if you associate the state with high poverty, you're right, too.
As usual, the Garden State, a study in contrasts, registered some of the highest-income and lowest-income places, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2007 American Community Survey, released Tuesday.
As a whole, the state still makes a lot of money. It had the nation's second-highest median household income. The average household last year brought in $67,035. Only Maryland had a higher per-household income, the survey said.
In recent years, New Jersey and Maryland, along with Connecticut, have held the title as the highest-income state. And it's usually been close.
The state's poverty rate was 8.6 percent = well below the national rate of 13 percent. Only Hawaii, Connecticut, Maryland and New Hampshire had a smaller portion of their residents living in poverty.
But in New Jersey, the poverty appears to be highly concentrated in cities - particularly Camden, a former industrial dynamo near Philadelphia that fell on hard times decades ago.
With a median household income of $25,389, Camden was the third poorest city with at least 65,000 residents. Passaic was 10th on that list with $27,691.
The good news for Camden, where families make more than they do in Bloomington, Ind., and Youngstown, Ohio, is that the income is up significantly. Two years ago, Camden had the lowest income of any city its size. The median then was just $18,007. The Census Bureau, though, cautions that because of the way it collects data, household income from year to year may not be comparable.
Camden also had a poverty rate of 38.3 percent - down from 44 percent from two years earlier. Only Bloomington had a higher poverty rate. But the Census Bureau says that the rates for the two cities, along with Brownsville, Texas, and Gainesville, Fla., do not have statistically different rates.
New Jersey also has four counties that make the list of lowest-poverty or highest income for counties of their size.
With a median household income of $100,327, Hunterdon County had the highest income of any county with a population between 65,000 and 250,000. Its poverty rate was just over 4 percent - the fourth-lowest for a county of its size.
Somerset, Morris and Sussex Counties also ranked high in income or low in poverty.
Gov. Jon S. Corzine said it's troubling that some New Jersey towns remain among the places with the highest poverty rates and lowest incomes.
``As long as three are people who are left behind or left out of the American promise, I don't think we can ever rest on our laurels,'' he said Tuesday. |
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Audio Content and Graphic Content © MMVIII WCBS-AM 880.
|
|
|
|
