Report: despite healthy economy, working class still struggling

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published August 30, 2006 at 7:28 AM PDT

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

The U.S. Census Bureau has released the latest figures on poverty and income. They cover changes from 2004 to 2005. The statistics show poverty nation-wide remained at the same level, in spite of an i

The U.S. Census Bureau has released the latest figures on poverty and income. They cover changes from 2004 to 2005. The statistics show poverty nation-wide remained at the same level, in spite of an improving economy. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more on the situation in San Diego.

To be officially in poverty, one has to earn less than $10,000 a year. In San Diego, that's 11 percent of the population.

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In 2005, San Diego's median annual income was $56,000. But Paul Karr of the Center on Policy Initiatives, a think tank on working families' issues, says the median annual earned income was only $33,000.

Karr: "It's interesting but not surprising, considering the size of the low wage industries here in San Diego -- food preparation, tourism, maintenance and building, even health care support -- these are all jobs or occupations that barely provide folks the ability to provide basic needs."

Tourism, a growing sector of the San Diego economy, is the lowest wage occupation, with a median annual wage of less than $20,000.

The census reveals one in five San Diegans who works full time earns less than $25,000 a year. Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.