Thousands of San Diegans Live Below Poverty Level

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published August 26, 2008 at 1:05 PM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

New data from the U.S. Census shows hundreds of thousands of San Diegans continue to live well below the federal poverty level. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

New data from the U.S. Census shows hundreds of thousands of San Diegans continue to live well below the federal poverty level. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more. The median household income here in San Diego fell about one per cent in 2007. That’s statistically stagnant .

Susan Duerksen is with the Center on Policy Initiatives , a think tank on issues affecting working families. She says people at the bottom end of the economic spectrum haven’t gained any ground.

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Duerksen: The poverty rate in San Diego County is also statistically unchanged … it is now 11 percent. But the federal poverty measure is really irrelevant for this area because the cost of living is so high here.

Deurkson says more than 300,000 San Diegans live in poverty, as defined by the federal government. But the federal poverty threshold is about $20,000 a year for a family of four – and CPI has calculated families need well over double that just to make ends meet in San Diego. They estimates about 800 residents live in financial hardship, many of them working people and many of them children.

The data shows the top 20 percent of all households earn half of the county’s income, while the bottom 20 percent only earned 4 percent of the income pie.

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.