Ready for some depressing reading? With the release of the 2010 American Community Survey from the Census Bureau, we can now explore how the financial health of our nation's various congressional districts changed over the 2000-2010 period. (Back at Swing State Project, we already looked extensively at some of the data that the 2010 full count provided, like population change and changes in racial composition. Unfortunately, with the elimination of the Census's long form, we had to wait a while for the ACS data to look at income and poverty; ACS is a yearly survey that contacts enough people to get reliable estimates on all the former long-form data. It's limited to populations over 65,000, but that includes CDs.)
Here, we're more concerned with the change over the last 10 years than the simple raw numbers of which CDs are the richest and the poorest. The same few districts (VA-11, NY-14) are always going to be on top and on the bottom (NY-16), but the real demographic meatiness is where the trends are, who's particularly hard hit, and accordingly who might be receptive to different types of economic messaging.
I also looked at changes in income and poverty at SSP, but interestingly, the last time I did it was in September of 2008 (using the 2000-2007 trend), which is pretty much the very month the economy went kerflooey. So, really, there are two different things we need to look at here: the long-term trend over the entire decade, and what districts were particularly hard hit over the last few years of recession and slow recovery. The National Journal's Ron Brownstein released an excellent piece several weeks ago looking at the 2007-2010 trend on the state level, but here we're going to drill down a little further.
Let's start with median household income (MHI). As you'll see, MHI, per capita income, and poverty levels all tend to track each other fairly closely (so most of our graphs will be over the fold). There can be very different results, though, depending on household size; for instance, suburban/exurban districts like northern Virginia's 10th and 11th fare better on median household income, while affluent downtown districts with many single-family households fare the best on PCI. But since we're in a downbeat mood, here, let's start with the districts (as currently districted, not their future configurations) with the biggest drops in MHI.
District |
Rep. |
2000 |
2010 |
Change |
GA-04 |
Johnson (D) |
$47,943 |
$43,435 |
- $4,508 |
MI-14 |
Conyers (D) |
$36,099 |
$31,786 |
- $4,313 |
MI-12 |
Levin (D) |
$46,784 |
$43,431 |
- $3,353 |
MI-09 |
Peters (D) |
$65,358 |
$62,098 |
- $3,260 |
IN-07 |
Carson (D) |
$36,522 |
$34,139 |
- $2,383 |
MI-13 |
Clarke (D) |
$31,165 |
$29,343 |
- $1,822 |
GA-13 |
Scott (D) |
$46,477 |
$44,704 |
- $1,773 |
MI-10 |
Miller (R) |
$52,690 |
$51,487 |
- $1,203 |
MI-05 |
Kildee (D) |
$39,675 |
$38,495 |
- $1,180 |
MI-11 |
McCotter (R) |
$59,177 |
$58,150 |
- $1,027 |
Over the full 2000-2010 period, the worst damage seems to be located squarely in Michigan, which was losing ground all decade, even before the rest of the country joined it. Other additions are the suburban black-majority districts in the Atlanta area, which are rapidly moving from narrow African-American majorities to large ones.
District |
Rep. |
2007 |
2010 |
Change |
MI-09 |
Peters (D) |
$70,078 |
$62,098 |
- $7,980 |
CA-48 |
Campbell (R) |
$89,758 |
$82,047 |
- $7,711 |
MI-11 |
McCotter (R) |
$65,449 |
$58,150 |
- $7,299 |
CT-04 |
Himes (D) |
$84,047 |
$77,074 |
- $6,973 |
FL-20 |
Wasserman Schultz(D) |
$57,639 |
$50,095 |
- $6,734 |
IN-07 |
Carson (D) |
$40,443 |
$34,139 |
- $6,304 |
NV-01 |
Berkley (D) |
$50,035 |
$43,916 |
- $6,119 |
GA-06 |
Price (R) |
$79,575 |
$73,528 |
- $6,047 |
CT-05 |
Murphy (D) |
$66,454 |
$60,460 |
- $5,994 |
FL-08 |
Webster (R) |
$51,053 |
$45,221 |
- $5,832 |
Compare that chart with the 2007-2010 one, which presents a more diverse array of districts. Two Michigan districts show up, but they're the state's two most affluent districts, as management apparently felt the pain the rest of the workforce felt earlier in the decade (or at least had further to fall). But there's also a mix of rich districts where there's probably less suffering but shrunken bonuses took at least a large numeric toll (CA-48, CT-04), districts that were particularly hard hit by the implosion of the housing bubble (NV-01, FL-20, FL-08), and one wild card, suburban GA-06, an affluent district but also one which has seen the starts of demographic change (white flight, new African-American residents), just in the last few years.
If you're wondering who has the smallest overall MHI in 2010, the worst off is NY-16 in the south Bronx ($23,773), followed by KY-05, WV-03, CA-31 and AL-07.
More over the flip...
So who fared the best with median household income?
District |
Rep. |
2000 |
2010 |
Change |
VA-10 |
Wolf (R) |
$71,560 |
$98,789 |
$27,229 |
VA-08 |
Moran (D) |
$63,430 |
$88,668 |
$25,238 |
VA-11 |
Connolly (D) |
$80,397 |
$105,560 |
$25,163 |
NY-03 |
King (R) |
$70,561 |
$92,064 |
$21,503 |
MD-05 |
Hoyer (D) |
$62,661 |
$83,020 |
$20,359 |
NJ-07 |
Lance (R) |
$74,823 |
$94,843 |
$20,020 |
NY-01 |
Bishop (D) |
$61,884 |
$80,674 |
$18,790 |
MD-06 |
Bartlett (R) |
$50,957 |
$69,501 |
$18,544 |
VA-01 |
Wittman (R) |
$50,257 |
$68,777 |
$18,520 |
NY-14 |
Maloney (D) |
$57,152 |
$75,348 |
$18,196 |
The moral of the story? It pays to work for the federal government, or one of its defense contractors. The four districts of northern Virginia's suburbs and exurbs all are here, along with the two fastest-growing districts in Maryland. New York area suburbs round out the top 10.
District |
Rep. |
2007 |
2010 |
Change |
CA-08 |
Pelosi (D) |
$63,525 |
$69,926 |
$6,401 |
TX-23 |
Canseco (R) |
$41,326 |
$47,330 |
$6,004 |
VA-10 |
Wolf (R) |
$93,701 |
$98,789 |
$5,008 |
ND-AL |
Berg (R) |
$43,753 |
$48,670 |
$4,917 |
NJ-07 |
Lance (R) |
$90,093 |
$94,843 |
$4,750 |
NY-03 |
King (R) |
$87,490 |
$92,046 |
$4,574 |
LA-06 |
Cassidy (R) |
$44,689 |
$49,016 |
$4,327 |
HI-01 |
Hanabusa (D) |
$62,298 |
$66,111 |
$3,813 |
TX-14 |
Paul (R) |
$52,563 |
$56,312 |
$3,749 |
TX-28 |
Cuellar (D) |
$36,106 |
$39,839 |
$3,733 |
The 2007-2010 list offers some surprises; I certainly wouldn't have expected San Francisco's CA-08 to be on top and don't have a ready explanation for that. If anything, I would have expected ND-AL to be on top (though it's close), given its lowest-in-the-nation unemployment numbers, related mostly to an oil-exploration boom in its uninhabited west. LA-06 is another strange inclusion, but that's probably explained by Katrina-related diaspora, as a fair number of flooded-out residents of Jefferson County suburbs probably moved to exurbs further afield, taking them all the way out into the 6th. The energy-sector-dependent TX-14 is on the list, but, encouragingly, so too are two very poor districts in the Rio Grande Valley, where there's nowhere to go but up.
Highest overall MHI in 2010 was VA-11 with $105K, followed by VA-10, NJ-07, CA-14 and NJ-11.
Now let's turn to per capita income, which, as I said, tends to emphasize urban districts with small households rather than suburban districts with large households. We'll start with the biggest 2000-2010 drops.
District |
Rep. |
2000 |
2010 |
Change |
MI-12 |
Levin (D) |
$23,560 |
$22,939 |
- $621 |
MI-14 |
Conyers (D) |
$17,546 |
$17,036 |
- $510 |
IN-07 |
Carson (D) |
$19,559 |
$19,275 |
- $284 |
MI-05 |
Kildee (D) |
$19,823 |
$19,673 |
- $150 |
MI-09 |
Peters (D) |
$36,072 |
$35,963 |
- $109 |
GA-04 |
Johnson (D) |
$21,048 |
$21,163 |
$115 |
GA-07 |
Woodall (R) |
$25,214 |
$25,403 |
$189 |
FL-14 |
Mack (R) |
$28,159 |
$28,412 |
$253 |
MI-13 |
Clarke (D) |
$17,078 |
$17,527 |
$449 |
FL-19 |
Deutch (D) |
$26,810 |
$27,552 |
$742 |
For the biggest 2000-2010 drops, again, you can see three trends at work: the collapse of the manufacturing base in Detroit (and Flint and Indianapolis), demographic change in the Atlanta suburbs (including Gwinnett County's GA-07, which if you'll recall my earlier work on racial change, was the district with the single largest drop in white percentage over the decade), and the locations of Fort Myers and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the very epicenter of the housing bubble's implosion.
District |
Rep. |
2007 |
2010 |
Change |
GA-05 |
Lewis (D) |
$35,979 |
$30,345 |
- $5,634 |
FL-14 |
Mack (R) |
$33,885 |
$28,412 |
- $5,473 |
NY-14 |
Maloney (D) |
$71,409 |
$66,242 |
- $5,167 |
CT-04 |
Himes (D) |
$51,868 |
$47,340 |
- $4,528 |
FL-22 |
West (R) |
$42,959 |
$38,530 |
- $4,429 |
MI-09 |
Peters (D) |
$40,304 |
$35,963 |
- $4,341 |
CA-48 |
Campbell (R) |
$47,737 |
$43,611 |
- $4,126 |
FL-08 |
Webster (R) |
$28,069 |
$24,212 |
- $3,857 |
FL-19 |
Deutch (D) |
$31,389 |
$27,552 |
- $3,837 |
FL-13 |
Buchanan (R) |
$30,132 |
$26,339 |
- $3,793 |
The 2007-2010 drop in per capita income seems heavily concentrated in housing-bubble districts in Florida (where, also, the senior-heavy population means that average household size is small, and changes in income streams from retirement investments would have a big impact). Also present here are some of the "silk stocking" districts that also took a big hit in the 2007-2010 MHI figures ... and one wild card at the top of the list, GA-05. That's a bit suprising, since unlike Atlanta's suburbs, the 5th (Atlanta proper) actually became marginally whiter over the decade, thanks to regentrification; it looks like maybe the new residents didn't fare so well in the last few years ... or maybe it's just a weird sample issue.
Overall, the districts with the lowest per capita income for 2010 are NY-16 (only $11,992), followed by CA-20, TX-29, AZ-04 and CA-34. They're all mostly-Hispanic districts with not just some of the lowest household incomes in the nation, but also some of the highest average household sizes.
And now for the biggest gainers in per capita income:
District |
Rep. |
2000 |
2010 |
Change |
NY-08 |
Nadler (D) |
$39,901 |
$53,920 |
$14,019 |
VA-08 |
Moran (D) |
$35,613 |
$49,211 |
$13,598 |
NY-14 |
Maloney (D) |
$53,752 |
$66,242 |
$12,490 |
CA-08 |
Pelosi (D) |
$34,552 |
$44,867 |
$10,315 |
CA-30 |
Waxman (D) |
$47,498 |
$57,321 |
$9,823 |
NY-18 |
Lowey (D) |
$39,446 |
$49,035 |
$9,589 |
MD-08 |
Van Hollen (D) |
$36,245 |
$45,691 |
$9,446 |
MD-05 |
Hoyer (D) |
$25,744 |
$35,146 |
$9,402 |
IL-07 |
Davis (D) |
$25,329 |
$34,665 |
$9,336 |
NY-15 |
Rangel (D) |
$18,094 |
$27,225 |
$9,131 |
Now here's an interesting little data point: NY-14 (centered on the Upper East Side) was in the top 10 PCI gainers for the 2000-2010 period, as well as the top 10 losers for the 2007-2010 period! It rode a roller coaster from 53K in 2000 up to 71K in 2007 and then down to 66K in 2010. Looks like quite a contrast in Wall Street bonus compensation in the first and second halves of the decade. Other than that, most of the rest of the list is urban or close-in districts with a lot of affluent singles ... and two other inclusions that might seem surprising at first, IL-07 on Chicago's West Side and NY-15 in Harlem. These are two of the nation's most rapidly regentrifying districts, though, as seen in their status as two of the few districts in the country that got significantly whiter over the decade.
District |
Rep. |
2007 |
2010 |
Change |
NY-29 |
Reed (R) |
$25,118 |
$27,865 |
$2,747 |
MA-09 |
Lynch (D) |
$33,874 |
$36,214 |
$2,340 |
NY-12 |
Velazquez (D) |
$21,386 |
$23,516 |
$2,130 |
ND-AL |
Berg (R) |
$24,127 |
$26,021 |
$1,894 |
AK-AL |
Young (R) |
$28,891 |
$30,598 |
$1,707 |
NY-10 |
Towns (D) |
$19,479 |
$21,144 |
$1,665 |
LA-06 |
Cassidy (R) |
$23,586 |
$25,172 |
$1,586 |
NY-25 |
Buerkle (R) |
$25,833 |
$27,360 |
$1,527 |
NY-20 |
Gibson (R) |
$27,694 |
$29,181 |
$1,487 |
MA-07 |
Markey (D) |
$35,477 |
$36,930 |
$1,453 |
The list of the biggest PCI gainers from 2007 to 2010 threw me for a loop, as it's heavy on upstate New York, not the first place that comes to mind when you think of a robust economic recovery. Seeing that districts that are dependent on the energy sector (which, thanks to inelastic demand, seems to be the part of the economy that fell off the least over the last few years) like ND-AL and AK-AL are on the list, though, I have to wonder if these districts wound up here because of their own little energy bubble, thanks to the sudden interest in hydrofracking as a means of tapping the otherwise untappable natural gas resources in the mountainous part of the northeast. Is there enough of that activity going on there to actually boost these districts like that, though? Several regentrifying NYC districts round out the list ... along with a couple from Boston's suburbs, another surprise. Boston seems to have been less hard hit than other more manufacturing- and housing-bubble-dependent metro areas, but I wouldn't have expected that level of overperforming.
The highest PCIs overall, for the year 2010, are the usual suspects (affluent districts with young singles): NY-14 ($66K), followed by CA-30, NY-08, CA-14 and VA-08.
Now let's turn to changes in poverty rates, starting with the biggest gains:
District |
Rep. |
2000 |
2010 |
Change |
MI-14 |
Conyers (D) |
19.7 |
31.1 |
11.4 |
IN-07 |
Carson (D) |
13.5 |
24.6 |
11.1 |
GA-04 |
Johnson (D) |
10.3 |
21.0 |
10.7 |
GA-13 |
Scott (D) |
8.8 |
17.6 |
8.8 |
AZ-04 |
Pastor (D) |
25.6 |
34.4 |
8.8 |
NC-12 |
Watt (D) |
15.9 |
24.5 |
8.6 |
MI-13 |
Clarke (D) |
24.4 |
32.8 |
8.4 |
WI-04 |
Moore (D) |
19.8 |
27.9 |
8.1 |
MI-12 |
Levin (D) |
7.3 |
15.3 |
8.0 |
OH-01 |
Chabot (R) |
13.9 |
21.9 |
8.0 |
Here's a clear indication of how increases in poverty this decade fell disproportionately on people of color: Many of these districts with the biggest poverty rate increases from 2000 to 2010 have African-American majorities, and (except for the Hispanic AZ-04) the others have significant black populations too. Declining midwestern cities are particularly represented (Milwaukee and Cincinnati appear too, in addition to Detroit and Indianapolis), but also southern districts like GA-13 and NC-12 that seemed to be thriving not that long ago.
District |
Rep. |
2007 |
2010 |
Change |
CA-43 |
Baca (D) |
12.5 |
23.9 |
11.4 |
AZ-04 |
Pastor (D) |
25.7 |
34.4 |
8.7 |
CA-20 |
Costa (D) |
26.3 |
33.7 |
7.3 |
NV-01 |
Berkley (D) |
12.4 |
19.7 |
7.3 |
CA-05 |
Matsui (D) |
15.5 |
22.6 |
7.1 |
FL-03 |
Brown (D) |
20.9 |
27.8 |
6.9 |
OH-01 |
Chabot (R) |
15.3 |
21.9 |
6.6 |
CA-18 |
Cardoza (D) |
19.8 |
26.2 |
6.4 |
CA-53 |
Davis (D) |
17.4 |
23.8 |
6.4 |
GA-04 |
Johnson (D) |
14.6 |
21.0 |
6.4 |
The 2007 to 2010 list of biggest increases in poverty rate is an almost totally different list, and it presents a different face of the country: mostly districts with large Hispanic populations, in areas of states where the housing bubble was at its most overinflated. These are the districts, like in California's Inland Empire and Central Valley, where the mid-00s economy grew heavily based on construction workers building endless rows of homes for more construction workers to live in. The sheer impact of the bust-boom-bust cycle is particularly pronounced in San Bernardino's CA-43, where the poverty rate started the decade high (20.7 percent), plunged to a healthy 12.5 percent in 2007 at the bubble's peak, and shot back up to an appalling 23.9 percent in 2010.
The districts with the highest poverty rates overall, for the year 2010, were NY-16 (at 38.9 percent), followed by AZ-04, CA-20, MI-13 and PA-01.
We'll try to finish with some good news: the districts that had the biggest declines in poverty rate. (Believe it or not, 26 districts showed a decrease in poverty from 2000 to 2010, and 23 even showed a decline in poverty rates from 2007 to 2010.)
District |
Rep. |
2000 |
2010 |
Change |
NY-15 |
Rangel (D) |
30.5 |
24.0 |
- 6.5 |
CA-37 |
Richardson (D) |
25.2 |
20.3 |
- 4.9 |
NY-12 |
Velazquez (D) |
28.3 |
24.4 |
- 3.9 |
NY-16 |
Serrano (D) |
42.2 |
38.9 |
- 3.3 |
NY-10 |
Towns (D) |
29.0 |
26.3 |
- 2.7 |
TX-28 |
Cuellar (D) |
29.9 |
27.3 |
- 2.6 |
HI-01 |
Hanabusa (D) |
9.7 |
7.7 |
- 2.0 |
CA-32 |
Chu (D) |
18.0 |
16.1 |
- 1.9 |
CA-35 |
Waters (D) |
26.4 |
24.7 |
- 1.7 |
NY-11 |
Clarke (D) |
23.2 |
21.6 |
- 1.6 |
While the list of the biggest drops in poverty is dominated by some of the regentrification-related usual suspects (NY-15 in Harlem, CA-37 in Long Beach), there are some indications of progress in some places that still aren't trendy addresses. That includes TX-28 in the Rio Grande Valley, and, yes, NY-16 in the South Bronx, which still has the nation's lowest incomes and worst poverty but is at least heading in the right direction.
District |
Rep. |
2007 |
2010 |
Change |
TX-16 |
Reyes (D) |
28.6 |
23.7 |
- 4.9 |
LA-04 |
Fleming (R) |
20.9 |
18.9 |
- 2.0 |
NY-15 |
Rangel (D) |
25.6 |
24.0 |
- 1.6 |
LA-01 |
Scalise (R) |
13.7 |
12.5 |
- 1.2 |
TX-15 |
Hinojosa (D) |
30.3 |
29.5 |
- 0.8 |
LA-07 |
Boustany (R) |
20.6 |
19.8 |
- 0.8 |
KY-05 |
Rogers (R) |
27.6 |
26.9 |
- 0.7 |
NY-19 |
Hayworth (R) |
8.0 |
7.3 |
- 0.7 |
OK-02 |
Boren (D) |
20.1 |
19.6 |
- 0.5 |
TN-08 |
Fincher (R) |
19.2 |
18.7 |
- 0.5 |
What's in the water in El Paso? Whatever they're doing, they're doing right lately, as they've had by far the biggest drop in poverty in the last few years. Beyond that, there's not much of a pattern here in the biggest poverty drops 2007-2010: There are a few districts in Louisiana, perhaps an indication of a burst of economic post-Katrina/Rita activity, and some chronically poor districts in the Appalachian arc where conditions didn't have any basis for getting even worse.
The districts with the lowest poverty rates overall in the year 2010? Lowest is a two-way tie between CO-06 (dominated by exurban Douglas County south of Denver) and suburban NJ-07, both at 4.4 percent. They're followed by NY-03, NJ-05 and NY-02.