Poverty in the Lehigh Valley: By the numbers

Poverty rates are near historic lows, yet more than 75,000 people in the Lehigh Valley are impoverished, many of them children.

Lehigh County’s poverty rate of 13% is a bit higher than Northampton County’s 10%. In Allentown alone, more than 31,000 people fight to meet their basic needs.

The link between poverty and age is clear, but, perhaps, not in the way conventional wisdom holds. Many people think about impoverished seniors struggling to afford rent and medications. But the data indicate the strongest determinant of poverty is being a child.

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About 6,000 children in the Lehigh Valley – more than one out of 6 – live in poverty. For seniors the rate is less than one out of fourteen, which is lower than the overall poverty rate for the valley. Whether the household is a single caretaker, married family, other family arrangement, or non-family household, the presence of children correlates with a higher poverty rate.

The link between education and poverty level is also clear. In plain English: stay in school.

The poverty rate for someone who has graduated high school is about half that of someone who hasn’t. The poverty rate for someone who has graduated from college is less than one-third that of someone who has graduated high school. People without a high school diploma have more than six times the rate of poverty than those with at least a four-year college degree.

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The above graph, combining data for Lehigh and Northampton counties, looks at the approximately 457,000 people who are age 25 and older. The portion of that population who have reported income below the poverty level during the previous 12 months is inversely proportional to the amount of education a person has received.

While the official poverty rate is often looked at as an indicator of how well people are doing, not everyone who is above the poverty line is financially secure. The Census Bureau tracks people at various percentages of the poverty level, since many government programs use such numbers as triggers for qualification for programs through the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture (which administers food support programs such as SNAP).

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The data show that, while more than 74,000 people in the Valley lived in poverty at some point in 2018, an additional 95,000 people were between the poverty threshold and two times that threshold. Many of those people qualify for at least one government program to help them meet their basic living needs.

For instance, a family of three earning less than $42,660 in 2018 would be under the 200% threshold. A family of four could have income up to $47,637 and qualify for reduced-price school lunches.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey

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