Re:A lot more market-rate construction helps low-income rent...
by twic on Tuesday March 24, 2015 @03:31PM
(#9258872)
> California ranks 35th in terms of poverty rate. [1]
I'm not sure how carefully you read the page you cite.
Firstly, that 35th is 35th from the bottom - which means that California has the 17th highest poverty rate amongst the 51 states and federal district of the USA.
Secondly, that rank is based on a definition of poverty based on income thresholds that do not vary across the country:
It therefore does not take into account geographical variations in the cost of living, such as housing. Since the whole point of the article is that California has a higher cost of housing, it is therefore not a useful measure in this context, or indeed at all. That's probably why, in 2010, the census bureau adopted a better metric, the Supplemental Poverty Measure:
Helpfully, the 2012-2014 average of this measure is also tabulated on the page you cite, and if you sort the states and the district by that, you can see that California does indeed have the highest poverty rate in the country - 23.8%, just pipping Washington DC's 22.7%
I'm not sure how carefully you read the page you cite.
Firstly, that 35th is 35th from the bottom - which means that California has the 17th highest poverty rate amongst the 51 states and federal district of the USA.
Secondly, that rank is based on a definition of poverty based on income thresholds that do not vary across the country:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/measur...
It therefore does not take into account geographical variations in the cost of living, such as housing. Since the whole point of the article is that California has a higher cost of housing, it is therefore not a useful measure in this context, or indeed at all. That's probably why, in 2010, the census bureau adopted a better metric, the Supplemental Poverty Measure:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/methodology/supplemental/...
Helpfully, the 2012-2014 average of this measure is also tabulated on the page you cite, and if you sort the states and the district by that, you can see that California does indeed have the highest poverty rate in the country - 23.8%, just pipping Washington DC's 22.7%