Median Household

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.

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.

BILL CLINTON is big on symbolism. He of the generation of the raised fist of fury and two fingers of peace knows the importance of images. His presidency has included some powerful visuals of healed race relations -- hugging the Tuskegee syphilis study survivors, opening the schoolhouse door for the Little Rock Nine, chatting with his advisory board on race.But most Americans remain pessimistic. The racial divisions that plagued us 40 years ago are different today, but they haven't gone away.

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.

Target, a Minneapolis-based discount department store chain, is planning to open a store in Westminster.A spokeswoman for Target Stores refused to confirm the chain's plans, but the Westminster Planning Commission has scheduled a staff briefing tonight on a plan labeled "proposed Target store" by the consulting engineers who submitted it for city review.The store is planned on part of a 100-acre site along Route 140 near Gorsuch Road. Westminster Nurseries Inc. owns the land and, the Church of the Open Door, an independent church, has a contract to buy the parcel.

If you are young, well paid and highly educated, you'd feel right at home in Howard County. It's one of the nation's 20 hottest havens for companies and workers in the increasingly information-based economy, according to American Demographics Magazine."

If you are young, well paid and highly educated, you'd feel right at home in Howard County. It's one of the nation's 20 hottest havens for companies and workers in the increasingly information-based economy, according to American Demographics Magazine."

WASHINGTON -- Stop complaining, baby boomers. You're doing just fine.That was the message from the Congressional Budget Office, which released a report today disputing the apprehension that the boomers -- the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 -- are less flush financially than their parents were and face a bleaker old age.Instead, members of the largest generation in the nation's history are -- with the exception of high school dropouts --...

Taxpayers association reviews past yearThe first annual meeting of the Carroll County Taxpayers Association will be at 7:30 p.m. Monday in Room 07 of the County Office Building, 225 N. Center St., Westminster.The agenda will include a review of the past year's activities, plus election of a board of directors for the coming year.Information: 875-0576.Census shows incomes increasing in CarrollCarroll County's 1990 census figures show a 17.7 percent increase in the median household income from 1980 to 1990, the Baltimore Metropolitan Council reported this week.

Newly minted suburbs on the perimeter of metropolita Baltimore enjoyed the fattest slice of the region's prosperity in the 1980s, census results show.As if moved by a socioeconomic type of centrifugal force, upper middle-class families spun off from the metropolitan core of Baltimore and its older suburbs to the area's fringes. Affluent households followed the path cleared by bulldozers andbackhoes to subdivisions freshly carved from farmland and forest.The new suburbs of southern Anne Arundel, western Howard, and northern Carroll and Harford counties all were boom areas.

Two reports came out last week that seemed to present a puzzling paradox. On the one hand, the Tax Foundation issued its annual rankings of state business friendliness based on taxes, and it pegged Maryland as sixth worst. On the other hand, the Census Bureau released figures showing that, once again, Maryland is the richest state in the nation, with a median household income of $70,545, about $1,500 more than last year. What gives? Sure, there are plenty of reasons in Maryland's case why business friendliness and prosperity wouldn't necessarily go together.

Despite a decrease in home values last year, Maryland remains the richest state in the nation, according to U.S. Census data released Tuesday. The state's median household income for 2008 was $70,545, an increase of about $1,500 from the previous year and slightly higher than New Jersey's figure ($70,378). Maryland also had the highest median household income in 2007 and has been among the national leaders for much of the decade, with Howard, Calvert and Montgomery counties all regularly ranking among the top 10 wealthiest counties in the nation.

While Maryland continues to be ranked as the richest state in the nation, according to estimates released by the U.S. census yesterday, the state's poverty rate showed a slight increase. In the Baltimore region, the increase in the rate of poverty was great enough to be statistically significant only in Harford County, according to state demographers. Data released yesterday painted a surprisingly rosy picture of the nation's economic picture in 2007. Median household income rose slightly, though the increase wasn't considered statistically significant, and the number of people without health insurance decreased by more than 1 million.

It seemed like a good idea. Baby boomers who never got around to saving as much as they hoped promised to keep working past retirement age. The joke in the generation has been: "I'll just work forever." And the intent has shown up repeatedly in research. But now along comes an economic downturn, and people are losing jobs. It looks as though Plan B, a lifetime of working, might not be an option to rescue undersavers after all. "It's a perfect storm," said Jack VanDerhei, a Temple University professor and fellow at the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

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.

Drive the 10 miles along U.S. 40 from West Baltimore to Ellicott City and see boarded-up rowhouses give way to stately homes with lush green lawns. The quick trip from one of the nation's poorest jurisdictions to one of its wealthiest underscores Maryland as a state of haves and have-nots - a point affirmed yesterday with the release of the latest census data on average household income and poverty. While Howard County ranked among the nation's richest jurisdictions last year, with a median household income of $91,184, Baltimore City's median income of $32,456 remained among the lowest, according to the study, known as the American Community Survey.

A front-page story in this newspaper last week heralded the U.S. Census Bureau's latest ranking of states by wealth, once again pointing to Maryland's relative riches. As measured by 2003 median household income, Maryland is the nation's third-richest state, behind Connecticut and New Jersey. And as in earlier surveys, Howard and Montgomery counties were among the most well-off places in the nation, ranking eighth and 11th, respectively. Such accolades are a natural consequence of the large concentrations of highly educated Marylanders and their relatively high employment rate, thanks in no small part to the state's long-standing good fortune to be right next door to the nation's capital.

When Stuart McNicol put his three-bedroom Pasadena home on the market four years ago, it sold in 18 hours. Since then, the value of the county fire chief's former home in Anne Arundel County has continued to rise, and it is expected to increase more than 45 percent above the original cost next summer. McNicol joins thousands of Maryland homeowners and renters who have watched housing prices mushroom recently - prices that are making it harder and harder for those with average-wage jobs to afford a place to live.

THE U.S. Census Bureau's annual economic report card says the incomes of most Americans are stagnant, the poverty rate has increased and the top 20 percent of households receive 50 percent of income. At best, that's a C. Even a president who never cared about mediocre grades should show more concern - along with the business community - when corporations are rolling in cash and able to pay top executives huge salaries while the average worker struggles to make ends meet. If one just looked at the larger economic picture, as the Bush administration tends to do, things would seem to be humming along - at least they were before Katrina.