Poverty continues to grow in the nine-county region. A new report issued today by ACT Rochester and the Rochester Area Community Foundation (see below) shows that more than 167,600 people in the Rochester region live below the federal poverty line.
The regional poverty rate is 14.3 percent, which is an increase of 1.1 percent from ACT Rochester’s first report in 2013. The poverty rate in the City of Rochester is 33.8 percent, up from 31.1 percent in 2013; the report calls the city’s poverty rate “extraordinary.”
Compared to similar-sized cities in the US, Rochester is second in overall poverty, first in child poverty, and first in extreme poverty – meaning people who live below half of the federal poverty level.
The report also refers to an analysis by the Brookings Institution that found that Rochester has the nation’s third-highest concentration of poor people living in extremely poor neighborhoods. And the number of those extremely poor neighborhoods has grown from 27 to 37, the report says.
But the report also refers to the region’s “bold and unprecedented” fight against poverty. The centerpiece of that fight is the Rochester Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative, which has just started implementing pilot programs in select city neighborhoods. The effort’s goal is to reduce poverty by 15 percent in five years and 50 percent in 15 years.
People still seem to think that there is a simple solution to “fix” poverty, despite being told many times and by multiple people that there is not, says Ed Doherty, retired vice president of the Rochester Area Community Foundation. And even among people who care about the issue of poverty, there is not a great deal of understanding of concentration of poverty, he says.
This article appears in Sep 14-20, 2016.
Just think, back in 1970, only @ 2,800 people were living in poverty in this area; now there are 167, 600.
Are we to think that people merely got poorer in Rochester over those 46 years?
We know many jobs have dried up with Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, Xerox and other big employers no longer providing stable jobs; that can account for some of the increased poverty.
I think there should be another consideration that accounts for the rise in poverty in this area; and, it has nothing to do with getting poorer while living in Rochester.
What about those who were already poor before coming to Rochester? How many poor newcomers to Rochester have added to this poverty number?
My guess is that there is a substantial number of people who came to Rochester, already at the poverty level.
If that’s the case, it’s not fair to label Rochester as one of the poorer cities in New York, or even in the country because those inflated poverty numbers are misleading and sends the wrong message about Rochester.
Rochester may be attracting more poor people than other big cities and for many reasons; yet, Rochester attracts not only poor people but all people.
So I resent when some people claim that Rochester is a poor city.
If the numbers in poverty are growing, I hope the anti poverty task force would address dealing with the flow of new incoming people, already in poverty.
In time, people in poverty here may leave to seek work in other cities and the poverty numbers will go down but unless the number of incoming people, already in poverty, is curbed, the poverty numbers will continue to grow in Rochester.
” People still seem to think that there is a simple solution to “fix” poverty, despite being told many times and by multiple people that there is not, says Ed Doherty, retired vice president of the Rochester Area Community Foundation”
Could this be the problem? Government trying to fix poverty? Unfortunately government “solutions” have good intentions, but make things worse. To much reliance on government weakens people, and creates dependency. You would think that eventually the voters would figure it out and realize that they have been used by their elected officials to enrich themselves only
The war on poverty has been an overwhelming success….for the liberals.
Don Sherman: Clearly you haven’t paid attention as all kinds of manufacturing jobs–the ones that pay well, don’t require bachelor’s degrees, but require a committed employee, and provide a good living–have left the area. And I’m pretty sure you would not want to live on a full-time burger flipper’s wages. Or even a full-time burger flipper with another part-time job’s wages.
Kathryn Q. Thomas-
Maybe you didn’t pay attention to or misunderstood my 2nd paragraph,
I acknowledged that many companies that were once here are no longer providing stable jobs to our community, which can have an affect on the growth of poverty.
Of course that includes manufacturing jobs that may or may not require a bachelor’s degree.