I am starting a new series on US Cities. I will be looking at income distribution and poverty in both large and small cities throughout the United States. First up is New York City. Using 2000 Census data I have mapped % of people living in poverty in the New York metropolitan area. If you would like to see the original interactive map go to Social Explorer and choose “Poverty” from the second drop down, then select the magnifying glass to zoom in on NYC.
{Click on the image to take a closer look}
For reference I am including a Google map of New York City. You can use this map just like the regular Google map and close the white message box.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Here are two maps showing Britain’s wealthiest and poorest households. (Unlike some of the previous maps I have posted about the US, this map of the UK relies on assets rather than income to determine who is rich and who is poor). I found this via the BBC from a Joseph Rowntree Foundation study: Poverty and wealth across Britain 1968 to 2005 Unlike the US, there seems to be very little rural poverty in the UK.
See also: United States Poverty Map
United States Household Income Map
[tags]BBC, Britain, UK, Wealth, Poverty[/tags]
Popularity: 4% [?]
I have taken this set of bar charts from a Census report (pg 10) that uses data from the 2006 Current Population Survey. The lowest quintile is the bottom 20% poorest households with annual income less than $19,179 in 2005 while the highest quintile is the top 20% richest households with annual income more than $91,706 in 2005. Something extra that was in the report but not the bar charts: while 49.9% of all households were in the suburbs, only 39.0% of the poorest households were in the suburbs compared to 61.5% of the richest.
{Click on the image to take a closer look}
[tags]income distribution, income inequality[/tags]
Popularity: 2% [?]
Another income map, this time plotting the % of people living in poverty based on the 2000 Census. If you would like to see a more detailed version go to Social Explorer and choose “Poverty” from the second drop down, then select the magnifying glass to zoom in on a specific county.
{Click on the image to take a closer look}
See also:
United States Household Income Map
United States Income Inequality Map
Addendum:
8/19/2007 I added Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico to the map.
[tags]income distribution, US income distribution, inequality, income inequality, income map, poverty[/tags]
Popularity: 44% [?]
The New York Times had an interactive graph that calculated income for different demographic groups. I have plotted people who dropped out of high school (bottom) with people who graduated college (top). It is important to note that the data is adjusted for inflation. What interested me is that not only has the advantages for getting a college degree increased but that the range of income for people with college degrees has increased.
[tags]income distribution, US income distribution, US income inequality, income inequality, New York Times[/tags]
Popularity: 3% [?]
An interesting New Yorker article about the methods used to measure poverty. The thing they point out that I would agree with is that poverty becomes a relative term when a country gets rich enough so the basic necessities can be made available to all. It is the distribution of wealth within a country (or your community) that determines whether you are deprived since it is only when you see what other people have that you realize you don’t have enough. (Again, assuming you have food to eat and a home to live in and a sense of security that comes from knowing this will be that case in the future.)
In the U.S., it is the presence of great inequality of wealth that undermines people’s feeling of well-being and also places them at a disadvantage relative to their fellow citizens. From the article:
Since relative deprivation confers many of the disadvantages of absolute deprivation, it should be reflected in the poverty statistics. A simple way to do this would be to classify a household as impoverished if its pre-tax income was, say, less than half the median income—the income of the household at the center of the income-distribution curve. In 2004, the median pre-tax household income was $44,684; a poverty line based on relative deprivation would have been $22,342. (As under the current system, adjustments could be made for different family sizes.)
Popularity: 2% [?]
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Relatively Poor
An interesting New Yorker article about the methods used to measure poverty. The thing they point out that I would agree with is that poverty becomes a relative term when a country gets rich enough so the basic necessities can be made available to all. It is the distribution of wealth within a country (or your community) that determines whether you are deprived since it is only when you see what other people have that you realize you don’t have enough. (Again, assuming you have food to eat and a home to live in and a sense of security that comes from knowing this will be that case in the future.)
In the U.S., it is the presence of great inequality of wealth that undermines people’s feeling of well-being and also places them at a disadvantage relative to their fellow citizens. From the article:
Popularity: 2% [?]