Census says we’re rich!

Statistics put Charles 9th in nation

Friday, Aug. 29, 2008

In 2007, Charles County ranked ninth in median household income of counties with 65,000 to 249,999 people, with a median income of $83,412, a 4 percent increase over 2006.

Calvert came in second after making a 12 percent leap to $95,134 in 2007, according to American Community Survey results released this week.

However, Calvert’s poverty level rose to 4.8 percent during that time from 2.8 in 2006, while Charles County’s decreased to 4.7 percent from 6.4 percent.

Anirban Basu, an economist with Sage Policy Group in Baltimore, said Charles County has had more job creation than Calvert, making it more likely that ‘‘residents who don’t necessarily have the skills to participate in the white collar market ... enjoy growth in income.”

‘‘Charles County remains affluent and has become exceedingly diverse,” he said.

Basu said more Calvert residents hold skilled professional positions in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore metropolitan areas, but more ‘‘job opportunities [in Charles] are accessible for people with less transportation options and less educational attainment,” such as in retail, food and service sectors.

‘‘A similarly situated person in Calvert may not have enjoyed as significant increases in job opportunities within the county and that may explain why the poverty rate has moved an opposite direction in Charles than in Calvert,” he said.

Poverty rates in Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s counties were all below the national average of 12.5 percent, with 4.98, 4.8 and 7.9 percent, respectively. The state average was 7.8 percent.

St. Mary’s County’s median income remained above the national and state average but did not make the top 10 list, increasing 6.5 percent to $75,769 in 2007. The national average is $50,233.

‘‘One of the reasons St. Mary’s County has a higher [poverty level] is it has more public housing and trailer parks. They used to say folks left Calvert to go to trailer parks,” said Swynice Hawkins, director of the Southern Maryland Tri-County Community Action Committee, an organization that provides assistance to low-income residents. ‘‘I wouldn’t think next year’s going to be much different; next year’s going to be worse” because of a poor economy.

‘‘Our income is up healthily, and also our poverty rate. My initial reaction is that underscores the widening gap we have between folks that are in high-tech job areas but we also have a growing caseload in economically disadvantaged folks,” said Bob Schaller, St. Mary’s County’s director of community and economic development.

The survey results also ranked individual places and cities versus counties.

Other counties with populations between 65,000 and 249,999, such as Stafford County in Virginia, had as low as a 3.4 percent poverty level, whereas similar low-income counties such as Apache County, Ariz., had as high as a 33.8 percent poverty level.

The weighted average poverty threshold for a family of four in 2007 was $21,203; for a family of three, $16,530; for a family of two, $13,540; and for individuals, $10,590.

Calvert’s median income came in just behind Hunterdon County, N.J.’s $100,327. The margin of error was $8,091.

Evidence of prosperity in similar-sized counties in Maryland and Virginia such as Fauquier, Stafford, Arlington and Carroll came even as 800,000 more people reached the poverty level nationwide from 2006 and incomes rose only slightly.

Income overall in the United States climbed 1.3 percent between 2006 and 2007 to $50,233.

This is the third annual increase in real median household income. Maryland’s median household income reached $68,080, making it the richest state in the union for two years in a row.

‘‘We have proximity to greater Baltimore and D.C. and stability of jobs in the federal government, Patuxent River [Naval Air Station], quality of life, good amenities and recreation, commitment to land preservation, and people recognize what the commissioners are doing here. We’ve had some pretty strong job growth,” said Linda Vassallo, director of Calvert County’s economic development, acknowledging that Calvert is considered a ‘‘bedroom” community because many residents travel out of the county to work.

Between 2003 and 2006, there was a 7.5 percent increase in jobs, mostly in smaller companies with mid- to high-range salaries, Vassallo said.

‘‘I don’t think there’s one magic bullet,” she said.

Hawkins said about 70 percent of the region commutes out of county to work, and 93 commuter buses leave Southern Maryland every day.

‘‘What drives it is a shared labor market, one of the highest wage labor markets in the country,” Basu said.

‘‘Calvert and Charles counties share similar prosperity with Howard, Montgomery, Fairfax and Arlington counties because they share this common labor markets. The other thing is availability of housing at various price points. Calvert County has been dominated by single-family homes and those homes attract and are affordable to higher income households. Calvert County has remained high-income even as its population has continued to grow. The average resident enjoys high wage job opportunities, which is not true of other places in the country. You have a recipe for a high-income community.”

Explaining poverty

Ken Gould, executive director of the Charles County Chamber of Commerce, said Charles has worked hard to help small businesses expand and open up more jobs in the county to lower the poverty rate.

‘‘That’s an indication our small businesses are thriving and doing a good job. The county is doing a better job of bringing in some larger companies. That [poverty] level isn’t improving at a rate you’d like to see it. It kind of looks like the upper end of that spectrum is doing well but somehow we must not be bringing the bottom half with us,” he said, acknowledging Charles’ poverty rate is still relatively low.

Hawkins said Charles’ poverty level is only down because of the number of wealthier people who have moved there.

‘‘I don’t think there are less people in poverty. I don’t think their living conditions have improved, she said, especially since Community Action has seen 68 families for foreclosure counseling in the last three months and last year, more than 5,000 Southern Marylanders received energy assistance.

‘‘This year, we haven’t even started to set up appointments and a day doesn’t go by that we don’t have 10 to 20 families to apply for the program because they need some type of assistance. We mailed out applications at the end of July. We have gotten back over 300 applications in the last three weeks,” Hawkins said. ‘‘In St. Mary’s County we are seeing our largest number of children and families who are asking to be in the Head Start program. In Charles County, we don’t have enough space [for all those eligible]. We’re seeing the difference in the last three years, of more people coming to our agency for assistance. Last year there was an increase in energy assistance in Calvert and in the food assistance program that we normally didn’t see, about 1,100 households, when it usually ran around 780-800.”

‘‘To a certain extent, it’s talking about how high salaries are [here], which we benefit from by pure accident of geography to Washington, D.C.,” said George Robertson, director of the Charles County Economic Development Department. ‘‘It’s a very healthy sign for the county. But you also can’t help but drive around here and see considerable new construction. ... [S]tores are adding people.”