New Census Figures Show Widening Wealth Disparity, Analyst Says

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published August 28, 2007 at 12:26 PM PDT

The median household income in San Diego County is up just over 2 percent. But the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau released today, show the average wage earned by an individual, full-time w

The median household income in San Diego County is up just over 2 percent. But the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau released today, show the average wage earned by an individual, full-time worker has gone down. KPBS reporter Alison St John explains.

The latest figures suggests more people per household are going to work, because the value of individual earnings has fallen almost 4 percent.

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Susan Deurkson is with the Center on Policy Initiatives , a think tank on issues affecting working families. She says the new data also shows the income gap between rich and poor continues to creep wider.

Deurkson : The households in the county earning the top 20 percent of income are taking home half of all the income made in the county, while the lowest fifth get less than 4 percent of all the income. That is a big gap between rich and poor that you do see across the country.

Almost one million people work full time, year-round in San Diego County. One in five of them earned 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.