Mercury News Quotes PNHP Senior Health Policy Fellow Dr. Don McCanne
San Jose listed No. 2 in household income
City Also Ranked 4th in Number of People Living in Poverty
By Jessie Mangaliman
Mercury News
San Jose residents had the second-highest income in the country, pulling down a median of $70,921 last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau reports released Tuesday.
Who makes the most among large cities? The good people in the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, where the median household income last year was $71,560, just $639 more than households in San Jose.
And the two cities share something else: Plano, a city of 250,000, has the lowest poverty rate in the country; San Jose is No. 4 on the list contained in an American Community Survey report from the government agency. The survey offers new details for the first time on income and poverty in counties and cities as small as 65,000.
Among smaller cities, Pleasanton households were No. 1, earning a median income of $101,022; Livermore was No. 3, with households making $96,632.
But economists and other experts cautioned that the earnings may not be as rosy as they seem — and can be deceptive.
“If people are paying a lot more for rent, for mortgage,” said Deborah Reed, an economist with the Public Policy Institute, “how much do they really have?”
“It costs a lot more to live here than other places,” she said, “so income doesn’t go as far.”
Adjusted for housing costs, poverty levels in San Jose and San Francisco are likely to be higher, she said.
A second census report showed that overall, median household income in the United States rose slightly and so did the number of uninsured. But the poverty rate was unchanged nationally, the first time in four years that it did not go up, according to the Current Population Survey, a national economic measure, released Tuesday.
Unlike the American Community Survey report, this report looks at data over time and can offer a look at trends across the country.
The figures suggest little or no change in the national picture, but advocates for the poor and the uninsured said the fact there was no change was upsetting.
“The lack of news is the news,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a non-profit policy institute based in Sacramento. “We’re not moving forward.”
Said Ross, “We’re not making the kind of progress we want to see in good times.”
The CPS report showed that there were 46.6 million uninsured in the United States in 2005, up slightly from 45.3 million. The same report showed that California tied for fourth with Oklahoma on the list of states with the highest percentage of residents without health insurance.
Dr. Don McCanne, senior health policy fellow for the Physicians for a National Health Program, an advocacy group that supports a national health insurance system, echoed similar sentiments.
“It’s terrible news,” said McCanne, a physician in San Juan Capistrano. The numbers, he said, indicate that efforts to reduce levels of uninsured made little difference.
“The problem is actually continuing to get worse. People die as a result.”
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Contact Jessie Mangaliman at jmangaliman@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5794.