Poverty in Our Area

Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates, for children aged 5 to 17 in families in poverty, rate as a percentage of all children that age:

	Delavan-Darien	Edgerton	Elkhorn Area	Fort Atkinson	Jefferson	Milton	Whitewater Area
2007	10.98	7.10	11.60	7.01	8.05	5.4	9.89
2008	11.90	8.22	15.28	8.78	8.62	5.71	10.54
2009	15.43	9.29	15.21	11.39	10.1	6.65	14.22
2010	22.17	9.62	9.71	13.79	12.28	8.94	16.29
2011	19.46	9.33	10.80	13.52	12.13	7.83	17.9
Change	+77.2%	+31.4%	-9.31%	+92.8%	+50.7%	+45%	+81%

Quick Notes:

1. Communities measured are school districts.
2. Same standard is applied to each community, for each year.
3. 2011 is latest year available.
4. Date range immediately precedes and follows the Great Recession.
5. All communities but two see a rate decline from 2010 to 2011 (even if slight) in child poverty after the recession ends.  Only Elkhorn and Whitewater do not see a lessening in the rate; of those two cities,  Whitewater is higher in 2011 over 2007 while Elkhorn’s 2011 rate is lower than her 2007 rate.  Only Whitewater increases each year.
6. The data above are poverty data (that is, a dire category of deprivation). The same Whitewater area also suffers, among children aged 5 to 17, economic disadvantage amounting to 44% of all such school-age children.

Monday: Assessing the Poverty Data for Our Area.