(not sure if this is worth its own thread or should be under the Suburban Sprawl news)

 

Big new national study from Brookings has data on the big 7 Ohio metros:

 

Responding to the New Geography of Poverty: Metropolitan Trends in the Earned Income Tax Credit (wonkish title hides a lot of cool data)

 

Brookings looks at EITC and Census/ACT data from 1999 thru 2007, and draws some conclusions for 2008-2010 (the Great Recession), since data limitations prevent them from using more recent numbers.  Yet a good measure of how the 2000's was a good set-up for the 2008-2010 debacle. 

 

Some definitions: 

 

The Brookings researchers define "low income" to cut off at 2 times the poverty line income, so its more than "the poor", as officially defined. 

 

EITC eligibilty cut-off points vary, but you have to meet these to claim the credit:

 

$12,590 (single no kids)

$33,241 (single, one kid)

$37,783 (single, two kids)

 

$14,590 (married, no kids)

$35,245 (married, one kid)

$39,785 (married, two kids)

 

So, for the Big Seven Ohio metros, the core cities apparently have bottomed out when it comes to increases in low-income/EITC earners, while people claiming EITC in the suburbs has ballooned.  The differences are pretty large:

 

Percentage increase in EITC filers between 1999 and 2007:

 

Akron City:  19.7%

Akron Suburbs: 45%

 

Cincinnati City: 2%

Cincinnati Suburbs: 44.6%

 

Cleveland City: 3.9%

Cleveland Suburbs:  44.9%

 

Columbus City: 38.6%

Columbus Suburbs: 64.1%

(this was the largest increase)

 

Dayton City:  9.2%

Dayton Suburbs:  47%

 

Toledo City:  21.8%

Toledo Suburbs:  47.8%

 

Youngstown City:  3.7%

Youngstown Suburbs: 25.5%

(interesting to see Youngstown the lowest here.  Hitting bottom?)

 

Percentage Increase in "Low Income" (per Brookings' definition of 2 x poverty rate and less):

 

Akron City:  11.0%

Akron Suburbs: 24.9%

 

Cincinnati City: 6.2%

Cincinnati Suburbs: 33.3%

 

Cleveland City: 13.2%

Cleveland Suburbs:  29.6%

 

Columbus City: 27.4

Columbus Suburbs: 32.2%

 

Dayton City:  6.3%

Dayton Suburbs:  23.4%

 

Toledo City:  3.1%

Toledo Suburbs:  21.7%

 

Youngstown City:  7.9%

Youngstown Suburbs: 11.2%

(as with EITC filers, Youngstown had the smallest % increase in low income. Yay rust belt chic.)

 

National averages:

Core cities:  5.1%

Suburbs: 18.6%

 

To see how this plays out in one Ohio suburb, back in 2007 I did a post on this subject for Kettering Ohio (using EITC data in part):

 

Kettering's Changing Socioeconomic Complexion

 

I think the interesting thing here is that for Ohio (exception is Columbus), things within the "city limits' are not getting as drastically worse as they are in suburbia.  One would like to think these are gentrification effects (more well-off people moving into the core cities), but it could also mean low income households are already concentrated in the city, or that urban shrinkage is reducing the numbers of people, especially if poor neighborhoods are becoming more vacant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've got to wonder if the suburbs for Columbus would include places like Whitehall and other municipalities on the SE and Far West side. Cincinnati's would also include the Lincoln Heights and Elmwood Places as well as the back end of the Kentucky counties which are pretty poor. It would harder to know whether this is actually poverty growing in once well-to-do suburbs are rather than lower middle class 'burbs dropping out of the middle lass.

So you're saying we're all going to hell together?

It would harder to know whether this is actually poverty growing in once well-to-do suburbs are rather than lower middle class 'burbs dropping out of the middle lass.

 

If you are asking about specfic geographies it is possible to narrow it down.  Brookings based their findings, in part, on the census, so census stuff should be available by tract.  For the EITC the data is aggregated by zip code, and Brookings has this interactive search feature on their website where you can do time-series by zip, assuming certain zips have rough equivilance with certain suburbs:  EITC Interactive

 

All this is national level, or comparable across the US.

 

For Ohio another great source to track declines in income over time is the Ohio Department of Education database. 

 

They track an "economic distress" measure down to the school level (I think this is based on eligibility for free school lunches).  So you can track this back a few years as low as the elementary school level, measuring how an elementary school catchment area might be declining in income, as more and more kids become eligible for free lunches due to their parents earning less.