MAHONING VALLEY Census results: good and bad
One researcher said the number of Valley families living in poverty has decreased in the last decade.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- There are fewer farmers, the average paycheck is bigger, and nearly 9 percent of Mahoning Valley households are still struggling to exist on poverty wages -- all facts included in new local data released a week ago by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Now, how to make sense of it all?
Development experts, researchers and representatives from local industries have just begun to process the reams of statistical data the census provides.
The 2000 Census poverty statistics, for example, look grim until they're compared with results of the last bureau survey a decade before.
Jacqueline Taylor, a research assistant in Youngstown State University's Department of Urban Studies, said statistics show a sizable improvement in the poverty rate.
Census data show 11.2 percent of Valley families were in poverty in 1990, she said, so the 8.9 percent rate of 2000 represents a moderate improvement.
Among households headed by women, 28.2 percent were in poverty in 2000, Taylor said, but that's an improvement from the 37.1 percent eking by a decade before.
"The improvement is probably related to the prosperous '90s," she said. "Our area did benefit from the economic upturn."
Gender differences
A comparison showed no improvement, however, in the disparity between the average yearly incomes of full-time working men and their female counterparts, even though average salaries grew for both men and women.
In 1990, said Taylor, the average man earned $29,844, but a woman earned $17,437; in 2000, men averaged $35,829 and women averaged $22,931. The difference actually grew, from $12,407 in 1990 to $12,898 in 2000.
Reid Dulberger, executive vice president of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce, thinks the disparity between male and female wage earners is related to the number of high-paying manufacturing jobs remaining in the region.
He said the ratio will correct itself, in time, as more women enter the work force.
Dulberger said the local economy is beginning to reflect the national economy in its number of service jobs vs. number of manufacturing jobs. With 41,019 service-related occupations, the service category made up 15.7 percent of the local work force when the 2000 census was completed, and he said that reflects a national trend.
Citing a study by the federal Department of Labor, Dulberger said the service sector will continue to grow in the next decade, the communication, transportation and utility sector will be the second-fastest-growing, and retail trade likely will be third.
Should the Valley be worried about its growing dependence on service occupations? Dulberger said the region still has a larger-than-average manufacturing base, and its production output is up. Manufacturers are learning to make more with fewer people.
Wider market
Besides, he said, the new global economy allows many service workers to sell and provide their services to consumers in other cities, other states, other countries.
"Selling business services, educational services, communication services. It's become another way to bring income into the community," Dulberger said.
Fred Denton, president of the Youngstown-Columbiana Association of Realtors, said the region's homeownership statistic is something to brag about.
The 2000 census indicates 73.9 percent of homes in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties are owner-occupied -- well above the 66.2 percent national average, and the 69.1 percent state average.
"I credit the lending institutions for coming up with some fantastic programs for homeowners," he said, "and the real estate agents who take the time to learn about those programs and take them to the home buyers."
Denton said the Valley real estate market took a tumble after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but business has been picking up since January. Sales volume was about 3.1 percent higher from January through April than it was a year ago, he said, and home prices have been about $800 higher, on average.
Comparatively low home values are helping to propel sales, he said. He shows his customers a Web site, www.homefair.com, which allows a consumer to compare communities' cost of living.
"If you're making $100,000 a year now and you live here, you're going to have to make $150,000 to live the same way in Boulder, Colo.," he said. "That's a selling point for me."
Affordable housing
Dulberger sited another source, a ranking of home affordability, provided by the National Association of Home Builders. He said the site recently ranked the Youngstown-Warren area 28th most affordable out of 193 communities in the country -- Cleveland ranked 78.1, Akron ranked 77.8 and Canton ranked 82.7.
For Pearle Burlingame, organizational director of Mahoning County Farm Bureau, census data put a number on a trend she's seen firsthand: a drop in the number of full-time farmers.
The census showed only 899 workers made a living in farming, fishing or forestry in 2000, down from 2,524 in 1990.
"That's the trend," Burlingame said. "All you have to do is drive down the road and you'll see all the new houses being built. Farmers are selling their land to developers, because they can make more money that way than they can farming."
Mennonite farmers in Greene and Beaver townships are buying up more land to expand their family farms, she said, but in other parts of the county, family farms are disappearing.
The high start-up costs are making it almost impossible for a new farmer to get into the business, she said, and many longtime farmers are retiring. Burlingame didn't have statistics on how many Mahoning County farms have gone out of business in the last decade.
vinarsky@vindy.com