Community Indicators

for the Greater Rochester Area

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
—James Baldwin
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Updated Poverty Data and Deeper Dive

Benchmarking Rochester’s Poverty: A 2015 Update and Deeper Analysis of Poverty in the City of Rochester was released in January 2015 following the participation of 80 community leaders and interested residents in an intensive poverty simulation. The goal is to develop a deeper understanding of poverty in the community, which includes knowing the statistics, but also going beyond the data to deepen understanding of the complex causes and effects of poverty.
Children in Poverty.JPG
Key findings include:
  • The city’s poverty rate continues to rise, and is now at 32.9 percent;
  • The childhood poverty rate has increased to 50.1 percent, ranking highest among the 18 benchmark cities. In that group, Rochester is now the only city where more than half of the children live in poverty; and
  • Among those benchmark cities, Rochester now has the highest rate of extreme poverty (16.2 percent), defined as people living below 50 percent of the federal poverty level. 

 

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