Poverty extends its grasp in the affluent Bay State
Census puts needy at more than 10%
Massachusetts households had a median income of $57,184 last year, remaining the nation's fifth highest earners , but the state faces discouraging trends in its poverty levels, according to federal data released yesterday.
An estimated 637,043 people live in poverty in Massachusetts, 10.3 percent of the population, said the US Census Bureau, which released income and poverty figures. Figures from a bureau survey in 2003 had indicated that 9.4 percent of Massachusetts residents lived below the poverty line, according to the website.
The national poverty rate is 13.3 percent, and Massachusetts ranks 11th lowest, according to the data.
The Commonwealth's numbers describe an affluent state with pockets of poverty -- Newton is singled out for its wealth and Lawrence for its poverty, for example. And while income levels are relatively high, the data do not reflect cost-of-living factors such as high energy and housing costs, nor take into account the large student population.
As policy makers worry about a state that is 150,000 jobs down from its February 2001 zenith, the numbers also are likely to inform the debate about how to create jobs and restore fiscal health.
Women in the Bay State earn a little more than three quarters what the men make, 77.7 percent. That percentage is the 13th highest in the country, and above the national average of 76.7.
The state's median earnings for men, $51,493, rank third in the nation. For women, the median of $40,025 ranks fifth.
At $57,184, the state's median household income sits nearly 24 percent above the national median of $46,242.
An analysis by the left-leaning Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center found ``no improvement in poverty," either nationally or statewide.
The state's income-to-poverty ratio, a measurement of the ``depth of poverty," according to the Census Bureau , ranks eighth-lowest, with New Hampshire and Connecticut leading the list.
In Massachusetts, 13.2 percent drew income below 125 percent of the poverty threshold, stacked against about 17.7 percent nationally.
But tallying the most impoverished people, those below 50 percent of the poverty threshold, Massachusetts' figures more closely tracked the national rate: 5.7 percent nationally and 4.9 percent in the Bay State, which tied for 18th lowest.
