Poverty Updates for Boulder County

The American Community Survey (ACS) released its 2011 data estimates yesterday, confirming the continuation of trends that have informed the Community Foundation’s work. Boulder County is a community both rich and poor. Poverty and wealth are not spread evenly across demographics. And our demographics are changing.

Here’s a brief snapshot of some of the 2011 data on poverty, on which this blog post will focus:

The 2011 median household income in Boulder County was $68,637, significantly surpassing the Colorado median income of $55,387 and the national median income of $50,054.
Despite this wealth, 14.1% of all Boulder County residents lived in poverty. The statewide poverty rate was 13.5%.
For Latino/Hispanic residents, the poverty rate jumped to 31.8% in Boulder County and 24.3% in the state as a whole.
For families with less than a high school education in Boulder County, the poverty rate is 42.1%. Across Colorado, it’s 28.8%.

These figures do not tell us everything about the place in which we live. They do, however, let us see certain trends and patterns, inequalities in outcomes for people, and areas in which we deviate from a larger state or national average.

The data tell us that, as a whole, Boulder County is a relatively wealthy place. Household income here was high in 2011, as it has been in years past. In fact, 2011 median household income of $68,637 grew from the 2010 estimate of $61,859. That’s good news.

While our income bests the statewide average, our poverty rate does not. The data tell us that more than 40,000 people lived below the poverty level in Boulder County last year, including about 8,000 children. Sliced differently, the data tell us that 10.1% or 3,659 families with children lived in poverty. To put that figure in perspective, the 2011 federal poverty rate for a family of four[i] was $22,350. The 2011 Self-Sufficiency Standard for a family of four in Boulder County, which estimates how much families need to make ends meet without public or private assistance, was $67,924. This figure impacts not only how we understand our median income, but how we comprehend what it means to be poor.

Looking more closely, the data tell us that wealth and poverty are not distributed evenly across demographics. While the overall Boulder County poverty rate was 14.1% for individuals, the rate jumps to 31.8% for Latino/Hispanic county residents, a growing demographic representing nearly 14% of our population. In other words, our Latino/Hispanic families are struggling disproportionately in Boulder County.

Those with less than a high school degree also struggle disproportionately in Boulder County, where our educational attainment level is notably high.

Highlighting our strengths and weaknesses, the ACS data remind us that we have work to do in improving outcomes for the nearly 8,000 students and the nearly 3,000 Latino/Hispanic families who live in poverty in Boulder County. We know that the academic achievement gap between kids in poverty and their peers is wider in Boulder County than just about anywhere in Colorado. We know that a similar gap exists between Latino/Hispanic students and their non-Hispanic white counterparts. This gap fuels drop-out rates, which in turn fuel poverty. The Community Foundation wants to close the achievement gap, and is actively working to reduce the number of kids in poverty who are academically behind their peers.

Thank you for joining us on this journey, and please stay tuned for more blog posts on ACS data in the coming weeks.

The American Community Survey (ACS) is an ongoing statistical survey that samples a small percentage of the population across the United States every year. Data changes from year to year may not be statistically significant due to small sampling sizes at the county level and large margins of error.

[i] Specifically, a family of four by this measure includes two adults, one pre-school-aged child and one school-age child.