Household Income

EVEN WITH the "new economy," it's the same old story for middle-class Americans.As the end of the decade nears, the U.S. economy remains strong: We have a robust real estate market, the greatest-ever bull market for stocks and a near-record run of continuous growth.Unfortunately, this makes for a bitter backdrop for those in the middle, who yet again appear to have lost ground to time, inflation -- and to the millionaire next door.For instance:Between 1973 and last year, a span of 25 years, the inflation-adjusted wages of the middle-class American dropped 12 percent.

WASHINGTON - Maryland has the third-highest household income in the nation but it also has a significant number of people living in poverty, according to recent reports by the Census Bureau.The state's median household income was $44,970 in the three years from 1995-1997, placing it behind only Alaska and New Jersey.But Maryland, with 9.6 percent of its residents living at or below the poverty level, trailed nine other states that had smaller percentages of their populations in poverty.Maryland's poverty rate was still better than the national average of 13.3 percent.

TWO CHEERS for the recent news from the Census Bureau about the decrease in poverty numbers.Rah: For the past three years, the number of Americans living in poverty declined, the agency noted. Those in poverty in 1997 totaled 35.6 million, down a little from the previous year, and a decrease of 3.7 million since 1993.Rah: The rate for African Americans dropped to the lowest level ever recorded, to 9.1 million, or 26.5 percent, from 28.4 percent in 1996 and 33.1 percent in 1993. Median household income was higher last year than at any time in the past 30 years, rising by 4.3 percent to $25,050.

WASHINGTON -- Key lawmakers and administration officials announced a compromise yesterday on legislation that would grant more freedom to local public housing authorities and end policies critics blamed for discouraging housing residents from finding jobs."

DETROIT -- Over the past quarter-century, affluent families have become increasingly able to insulate themselves from the rest of society. Nearly 4 million Americans live in gated communities. Private schools have become wildly popular. Even the humble sport of walking has changed, as treadmills at chic health spas supplant trails in public parks.And then there are the Jeeps.As the distance -- physical and financial -- between rich and poor grows, so does the appeal of the sport utility vehicle.

Randi and Brian Jones know firsthand how hard it is to afford housing on an average income in Howard County, the most expensive place to live in the Baltimore region.The Joneses pay $750 a month to rent a townhouse in Columbia's Wilde Lake village and are trying to buy the place.Though they have a solidly middle-class household income -- about $30,000 -- they still take extraordinary steps to make ends meet.To avoid day care costs for their 4-year-old and 2-year-old children -- expenses that would break their budget -- Randi Jones works days and Brian Jones works nights.

Randi and Brian Jones know firsthand how hard it is to afford housing on an average income in Howard County, the most expensive place to live in the Baltimore region.The Joneses pay $750 a month to rent a townhouse in Columbia's Wilde Lake village and are trying to buy the place.Though they have a solidly middle-class household income -- about $30,000 -- they still take extraordinary steps to make ends meet.To avoid day-care costs for their 4-year-old and 2-year-old children -- expenses that would break their budget -- Randi Jones works days and Brian Jones works nights.

THE LAST TIME people gathered in the drizzle to watch a flaming object being carried on U.S. 40 through Edgewood was last summer when the Olympic torch passed through to cheers and flag-waving. The past month, scores of people have marched along U.S. 40 carrying candles in the rain for a less celebrated cause -- to protest a pornographer who opened in their midst. Their action is as deserving of community applause.No neighborhood needs an adult book store, especially Edgewood, which has struggled to remake its image.

WASHINGTON -- Household income rose in 1995 for the first time in six years, the Census Bureau reported yesterday, as the number of poor people in the United States dropped by more than 1.6 million, reaching historic lows for blacks and the elderly.The bureau said half the households in the country had incomes of at least $34,074, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year.The inflation-adjusted increase of $898 was the first rise inmedian household income since 1989, the year before the nation's last recession.

WASHINGTON -- The poverty rate fell in 1994 for the first time in four years, the Census Bureau reported yesterday, but median income remained stuck -- a sign that gains from a surging economy are not getting through to all middle-class households.The census also found that nearly one in seven Americans -- 39.7 million people -- lacked health insurance in 1994, about the same as the previous year.Single mothers and black families gained ground in 1994, but full-time workers and single people living alone were losers.

WASHINGTON - - The government's first broad look at the recession's impact on American households in 2008 shows that the nation's poverty level jumped to an 11-year high, incomes sank for almost every group and the number of people without health insurance rose to 46.3 million. As bleak as these statistics were from the Census Bureau on Thursday, they captured only a part of the devastating effects of the economic downturn that worsened last fall and into this year. Analysts say they expect the official poverty rate, which rose to 13.2 percent, from 12.5 percent in 2007, to keep climbing this year and next, reversing the gains made in the 1990s.

Residents of Howard County's oldest public housing complex would face higher rents this fall if county housing officials can persuade skeptical Housing Commission members to go along with their proposal. A vote on the idea for Hilltop Housing in Ellicott City split the four commission members in attendance 2-2 Tuesday night, meaning the proposal failed, but Deputy Housing Director Thomas Carbo said he and Housing Director Stacy L. Spann will bring the issue back at the Aug. 18 meeting in the county's Gateway building.

This may be the year that farmers put a new set of spark plugs in their old Farmall tractors, instead of replacing them with new rigs. Farmers are not going to have as much money to bank at the end of the harvest season as the federal government forecast earlier this year and, as usual, they will draw the bulk of their earnings from off-the-farm jobs. When farmers close their books on the 2008 growing season, net farm income is expected to total $86.9 billion, according to a revised estimate by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

A city-sponsored economic study shows Baltimore has about $1.2 billion more in aggregate neighborhood income than traditional markets have estimated, and city leaders say they plan to highlight these findings to developers in an attempt to revitalize four floundering shopping centers. Mayor Sheila Dixon and other City Council members released the results yesterday of the Baltimore Neighborhood DrillDown study,which estimated that the city's population is 4 percent higher than the census bureau estimated in 2006 and that average household income is 5 percent higher than the 2007 traditional market estimate.

The statistics are eye-opening - if not startling. In Maryland, one of the most affluent states in the nation, significant swaths of poverty endure in urban and rural areas, among families and children. In Baltimore, 22.2 percent of residents live in poverty, new Census Bureau estimates show. To the east in Somerset County, the figure is 20.1 percent. And to the west in Allegany County, 15 percent of residents live in poverty. In a state where life for most residents has improved, those on the lowest rungs remain stuck.

Assuming that Mother Nature cooperates, farmers are in for a pay raise this year. It's not going to be the kind of increase that will allow the farmers to buy a luxury automobile, but it could be the year to replace an aging pickup truck. Economists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are projecting that net farm income will rise 4.1 percent this year. Farmers in Maryland and across the country are expected to bank $92.3 billion by the end of the harvest season, up from the $88.7 billion that they pocketed last year.

Tax increases aimed at Maryland households making more than $200,000 will: A. Hurt middle-class families already squeezed by big mortgages and high energy prices. B. Affect only upper-income families who can more easily afford a bigger government contribution. Which one you believe probably determines what you think of Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan for Maryland's biggest income-tax change in a decade. In fact, the answer is Both of the Above, which blares messages about social class, how we see ourselves and the pros and cons of O'Malley's proposal.

It's the kind of statistic that makes politicians and economic development gurus cheer: Maryland ranked as the richest state in the nation last year, according to estimates released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The state's proximity to Washington's lucrative jobs, its abundance of workers with advanced degrees, and solid health and research opportunities in the Baltimore area continually keep Maryland at the peak of the economic charts, experts said. "We are able to access a level of job opportunities that are simply not available to the balance of the nation," said Anirban Basu, chief executive of the Baltimore economic consulting firm Sage Policy Group Inc. "That doesn't mean that Maryland doesn't have some degree of impoverishment in rural areas and in Baltimore City.

Even in one of the nation's most affluent states, rising housing costs are stretching many Maryland households thin as they spend an increasing proportion of their income on rent or mortgages, according to figures released today from the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2000, roughly a third of Maryland renters paid 30 percent or more of their income on rent and utilities. Last year, 45.3 percent of all the state's renters spent at least 30 percent of their income on housing, according to the Census' 2005 American Community Survey.

CLARIFICATION An item in "The Week That Was" column in Sunday's Maryland section might have left an erroneous impression regarding the governance of charter schools. Charter schools are publicly funded but operate independently under contracts with local school boards or regulating agencies. Federal charges filed in slaying Nine months after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to revive the state's case against Leeander Jerome Blake, he was indicted by a federal grand jury in Baltimore on charges of first- and second-degree murder and other offenses.