Median Household

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.

Household incomes in Maryland slipped slightly in 2009, but the state fared far better than most as the recession dragged on, according to figures released Tuesday by the Census Bureau. Data from the American Community Survey found that median household income in Maryland decreased from $69,844 in 2008 to $69,272 last year. In another sign of the effects of the deep recession that economists have declared over, the proportion of Maryland families living below the poverty line last year rose to 9.1 percent in 2009 from 8 percent, a rise of about 63,000 people.

The chasm between Howard County's richest and poorest neighborhoods is widening. At the top in the state's wealthiest county is a census tract that includes most of Clarksville, where the median household earned $117,101 in 1999, according to new Census 2000 data. At the bottom are Ellicott City's neighborhoods bounded by U.S. 29, U.S. 40, Interstate 70 and the county line, where the median household earned $41,237. Those two census tracts held the same ranks 10 years earlier. But while both gained financially during the 1990s, Clarksville gained more - 15.5 percent compared with 5.5 percent in the Ellicott City tract, when adjusted for inflation.

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.

When you tune in to Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, don't expect to see Howard County. Palm Beach it isn't. But what Howard does claim is a lot of very comfortably well-off residents. So well-off, in fact, that only six counties in the nation have a higher median household income, according to Census Bureau 1998 wealth and poverty estimates released today. Howard County's median household income was a stunning $72,187, according to the estimates, which combine records such as tax returns with updated 1990 Census data.

Median household effective buying income for the Baltimore-Washington region ranked first among the nation's 10 largest markets in 1990.According to figures compiled by the Washington/Baltimore Regional Association, median household effective buying income, after taxes, in the Baltimore-Washington region maintained first place by adding $1,293 worth of income per household. The household total increased from $38,031 in 1989 to $39,324 in 1990.San Francisco ranked second, with a median household income of $39,032.

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.

Baltimore's waterfront has become a veritable Gold Coast, with household incomes rising substantially in the past decade from Federal Hill to Canton, new census figures show. The sharpest increase occurred in a section along the Inner Harbor that includes parts of Federal Hill and Key Highway, where the median household income grew by more than 80 percent, to $77,340, a number that rivals some of the traditionally wealthier neighborhoods in North Baltimore. At the same time, household incomes in many lower- and middle-income neighborhoods in East and West Baltimore - including many of those north of the Johns Hopkins medical complex and along the Liberty Heights and Park Heights corridors - showed significant declines, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

For nearly two decades, the Maryland State Police has provided protection for Carroll County under a "resident trooper" program. The arrangement seemed beneficial to both sides. Carroll got superior service cheaply, the State Police got a community-training ground. It seemed as though the arrangement would last forever.Until the recession hit.The state, faced with a mammoth deficit, told the county last fall it couldn't afford the traditional 25 percent subsidy it provided for the program.

TRENTON, N.J. - Which state is the richest? After the recent release of an experimental Census Bureau survey in which a sampling of people across the country were asked a lot of questions about things like having flush toilets in their mobile homes, the kind of fuel they used and the amount of money they made the year before, it looked as if New Jersey had hit the jackpot. "A State of Affluence," one New Jersey front page crowed. "A Land of Plenty," said another. The nation's "epicenter of affluence" had "shifted a few golf courses to the southwest, to New Jersey," readers were informed.

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.

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.

Household incomes and poverty rates have held steady in Maryland since 1999, bucking a national trend that has seen incomes drop and poverty rise, according to the latest U.S. Census report. Median household income in the state averaged $55,013 in the three years from 1999 to 2001, placing it second only to Alaska's average of $55,426. Census officials say that Maryland saw a slight dip in median household income - from an average of $55,755 in 1999 and 2000, to $54,794 from 2000 through 2001.

Most of America prospered during the 1990s, with the biggest and most surprising gains made in the former "Rust Belt" of the Midwest. The latest batch of data from the 2000 Census, released yesterday, shows that the nation's median household income grew by 7.6 percent after inflation. Median home values increased by 20 percent, and the number of families living below the federal poverty line dropped by 8 percent. Midwesterners living in metropolitan areas saw median household incomes climb by $4,351, to $47,775, after adjusting for inflation - the biggest increase for any region in the country.

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.