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DENVER - Colorado's poverty rate rose slightly in 2004 while housing costs and personal income both recorded slight gains according to new Census Bureau figures that one economist said signaled the state's still-slow recovery from the recent recession.
Figures released Tuesday show the average poverty rate in Colorado rose from 9.7 percent in 2002-03 to 9.9 percent in 2003-04, while median income rose from $51,005 to $51,170. Those numbers are from the Current Population Survey, which sampled three months of data from about 100,000 households nationwide beginning in February.
Also Tuesday, the agency released new figures in its American Community Survey, which showed a 6.3 percent increase in Colorado's median housing value, rising from sixth in the nation at $199,039 in 2002 to 11th at $211,740 last year. The American Community Survey, which includes information on a wide range of factors, is based on responses to a Census form mailed to about 250,000 addresses a month nationwide.
At the same time housing values rose, the median mortgage payment also increased about 1.6 percent, from about $1,333 in 2002 to $1,355 last year.
Economics professor Harvey Cutler, co-director of Colorado State University's Center for Research on the Colorado Economy, said the fact that both the poverty rate and median income level rose indicated a widening divide between upper-income and lower-income residents.
The change was slight, he said, but made more noticeable by the rise in housing value.
"What hurts is the new wage earners who don't own homes yet finding it more difficult to get into the housing market," Cutler said. "For people who own homes, it's less of a factor."
Changes in the housing market, including faster growth in housing costs than in income, has some economists concerned.
Tucker Hart Adams, president of The Adams Group Inc., said people will have to cut back in spending on clothes, gasoline and other items to compensate for rising mortgage payments. And those payments are likely to rise for people who stretched their finances to buy a house using variable-interest loans or other increasingly popular mortgage products, she said.
"It's a very serious issue. Sooner or later we've got to learn to live within our income," she said. "There's nothing in these numbers that reassures me at all."
She said about 60 percent of new mortgages feature interest rates that vary depending on rates set by the Federal Reserve, which has increased the prime lending rate to a nearly four-year high after reducing it to record low levels to help revive the nation's economy.
"With the saving rate down right at zero, people can't cut back on their savings to make higher payments," Adams said. "The only place for it to come from is out of consumption and consumers are 71 percent of the economy and we don't each have to cut back very much to really force a downturn."
The Current Population Survey also showed that the average number of Coloradans without health insurance rose from 16.7 percent in 2002-03 to 17.1 percent in 2003-04.
Adams has said insurance-coverage figures can be misleading because they often include people who were without health insurance for only a few weeks in a year. ---
On the Net:
Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov
Figures released Tuesday show the average poverty rate in Colorado rose from 9.7 percent in 2002-03 to 9.9 percent in 2003-04, while median income rose from $51,005 to $51,170. Those numbers are from the Current Population Survey, which sampled three months of data from about 100,000 households nationwide beginning in February.
Also Tuesday, the agency released new figures in its American Community Survey, which showed a 6.3 percent increase in Colorado's median housing value, rising from sixth in the nation at $199,039 in 2002 to 11th at $211,740 last year. The American Community Survey, which includes information on a wide range of factors, is based on responses to a Census form mailed to about 250,000 addresses a month nationwide.
At the same time housing values rose, the median mortgage payment also increased about 1.6 percent, from about $1,333 in 2002 to $1,355 last year.
Economics professor Harvey Cutler, co-director of Colorado State University's Center for Research on the Colorado Economy, said the fact that both the poverty rate and median income level rose indicated a widening divide between upper-income and lower-income residents.
The change was slight, he said, but made more noticeable by the rise in housing value.
"What hurts is the new wage earners who don't own homes yet finding it more difficult to get into the housing market," Cutler said. "For people who own homes, it's less of a factor."
Changes in the housing market, including faster growth in housing costs than in income, has some economists concerned.
Tucker Hart Adams, president of The Adams Group Inc., said people will have to cut back in spending on clothes, gasoline and other items to compensate for rising mortgage payments. And those payments are likely to rise for people who stretched their finances to buy a house using variable-interest loans or other increasingly popular mortgage products, she said.
"It's a very serious issue. Sooner or later we've got to learn to live within our income," she said. "There's nothing in these numbers that reassures me at all."
She said about 60 percent of new mortgages feature interest rates that vary depending on rates set by the Federal Reserve, which has increased the prime lending rate to a nearly four-year high after reducing it to record low levels to help revive the nation's economy.
"With the saving rate down right at zero, people can't cut back on their savings to make higher payments," Adams said. "The only place for it to come from is out of consumption and consumers are 71 percent of the economy and we don't each have to cut back very much to really force a downturn."
The Current Population Survey also showed that the average number of Coloradans without health insurance rose from 16.7 percent in 2002-03 to 17.1 percent in 2003-04.
Adams has said insurance-coverage figures can be misleading because they often include people who were without health insurance for only a few weeks in a year. ---
On the Net:
Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov
