Summary of Poverty Statistics for Virginia and Charlottesville

1. Distribution of Income for Virginia Households and Families
   
   One set of federal definitions of poverty shows that 9.5% of Virginia households have incomes below the relevant federal poverty guidelines. Can you determine the mean income of Virginia households at (for the sake of convenience) the 10^th percentile of income among all VA households, or anything approximate to that?
   According to a dataset¹ that includes a sample of Virginia households, the household income² in 1999 at the 9.5 percentile was $12,000. Accounting for inflation, this number would rise to approximately $14,067 in 2005.³ The family income⁴ in 1999 at the 9.5 percentile was $6,500. Inflated to 2005 dollars, this amount changes to approximately $7,620. The poverty threshold for 2005 was set at $10,160 for one person, $13,461 for two people, and $19,806 for a family of two adults and two children under the age of 18.⁵
   
   
2. Poverty in Charlottesville
   
   Do any standard data suggest that 25% of Charlottesville households have incomes below the relevant federal poverty guidelines? What data exist on this topic?
   According to the 2000 Census, 12.0% of the families in the City of Charlottesville were below the poverty level in 1999 and 25.9% of individuals were below the poverty level.⁶ The number of individuals below the poverty level in Charlottesville, however, may be artificially high.⁷ While the Census Bureau excludes college dormitories from its calculation of poverty statistics, those students living “off campus” are included when the Census calculates the number of individuals below the poverty level. College students will often seem as if they fall below the poverty level because their primary sources of income (such as financial assistance from family or student loans) may not be claimed on a census form. When the concentration of individuals below the poverty level in Charlottesville is mapped by city geography, it can be seen that those areas with a very high poverty level are the areas where many UVa students reside (see below). While both the percentage of families and the percentage of individuals below the poverty level are important to understanding the poverty breakdown in Charlottesville, the percentage of individuals considered to be living in poverty must be interpreted with caution.