The incidence of economic stress in affluent areas: devising more accurate measures

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, April, 1994 by Leonard Gaines, Pearl M. Kamer

The Census Bureau was able to identify only forty-four census tracts in Nassau and Suffolk Counties in which at least 10% of the population fell below national poverty thresholds in 1989. These census tracts are listed in Table 3.

III

An Alternate Method for Measuring Economic Distress

ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE and evidence provided by soaring welfare rolls suggest that the poverty statistics, in and of themselves, mask a significant amount of economic distress on Long Island. Therefore, an alternate method for measuring economic distress was devised and applied to the generally affluent Long Island area. It linked economic distress to median household income in each county and distinguished between "very low income" census tracts and "low-to-moderate" income census tracts. Very low income census tracts were defined as those in which 35% or more of all households were characterized by incomes below 50% of the county median household income. Census tracts designated as "low-to-moderate" income met the following criteria: at least 40% of all households in the tract had incomes below 80% of the county median household income and, of these, at least 20% of all households had incomes between 50% and 80% of the county median household income. In order to identify concentrations of "significant economic stress", only those census tracts containing at least 800 households with the relevant characteristics were included. These percentage cutoffs were based on trial and error experimentation designed to capture major poverty concentrations on Long Island. They were also designed to eliminate any overlap between the very low income and the low-to-moderate income census tracts.

Table 2

INCIDENCE OF POVERTY, 1979, 1989
LONG ISLAND

                                                Persons in Poverty

Area                                     1979         1989        % Change

Glen Cove City                          1,391        1,494           7.4
Hempstead Town                         38,121       28,720         -24.7
Long Beach City                         4,237        2,659         -37.2
North Hempstead Town                    8,788        6,999         -20.3
Oyster Bay Town                         9,701        7,320         -24.5
Nassau County                          62,236       47,192         -24.2

Babylon Town                           13,937       10,144         -27.2
Brookhaven Town                        27,006       20,681         -23.4
East Hampton Town                       1,388          803         -42.1
Huntington Town                         7,192        8,034         -16.1
Islip Town                             20,951       14,980         -28.5
Riverhead Town                          2,167        1,883         -13.1
Shelter Island Town                       146           85         -41.8
Smithtown Town                          4,516        2,432         -46.1
Southampton Town                        3,572        3,350          -6.2
Southold Town                           1,212          997         -17.7
Suffolk County                         82,087       61,389         -25.2

Nassau-Suffolk                        144,323      108,581         -24.8

Source: U.S. Census Bureau. 1990 Census of Population and Housing. Summary
Tape File 3, New York. Washington, D.C. 1992.
Table 3

CENSUS TRACTS WITH 10%  OF POPULATION IN POVERTY
               Nassau
  Census    Persons in   % of Tract
  Tract     Poverty      Population

  3042.01       855          11.5
  4067        1,335          18.7
  4068          935          12.2
  4069          989          16.2
  4070          891          14.1
  4072          943          10.5
  4110          654          15.3
  4111          538          15.6
  4139          943          13.4
  4142.02       400          10.0
  4144          724          14.5
  4165          730          12.9
  4166          789          15.7
  5172          656          10.9
Total Nassau 11,382