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Poverty in Houston is Up, But So Too Are Incomes

Posted byHoumanitarian

(Renee C. Lee,
Houston Chronicle)
Houston’s poverty rate increased slightly last year even as its median income ticked up – mixed signals that experts said reflected the uneven nature of the economic recovery.

Census data released on Thursday showed that the city’s poverty rate increased by 1 percentage point to 23.8 in 2011 from 2010, while median household income increased by $542 to $42,877. The share of the population without health insurance, meanwhile, dropped to 28.9 percent from 30.9 percent.

The figures suggest that Houston’s economy is faring better than those of other cities, but the improvements aren’t reaching people at the bottom of the ladder, experts said.

“It reminds us that macro-economic indicators used to measure general well-being are no longer reliable,” said Stephen Klineberg, a Rice University sociology professor who closely follows the city’s economic and demographic trends through his annual surveys. “It’s a new kind of economy that produces good jobs for the highly skilled and low-pay jobs, no-benefits jobs, for the unskilled. And there are few jobs in between.”

Houston has had huge job growth in the last two years, which means more people have insurance through their employers, said Patrick Jankowski, a vice president of research for the Greater Houston Partnership.

While the slight poverty rate increase is statistically insignificant, it shows that about 1 in 5 people remain in poverty.

“We don’t want to see more people in poverty since there’s such an abundance of resources and talent here,” Jankowski said. “We need to find a way for them to benefit so they can pull themselves out of poverty.”

The gap, he says, is driven by disparities in education and skills. Many jobs in Houston are concentrated in the engineering, health care and oil and gas industries that pay well and require education.
(Read more of this story at Houston Chronicle)

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