Community Corner

Hispanics Left Behind in Valley's Economy

Annual "State of the Lehigh Valley" report reveals disparity in income and poverty levels for Hispanics.

Hispanics who are prone to occupying some of the lower rungs of the American economic ladder are faring even worse in the Lehigh Valley than they do nationally or in comparable metropolitan areas across the Northeast, according to an annual report on community trends prepared by local researchers.

The Lehigh Valley has a higher median income and a lower rate of poverty than the nation as a whole, according to the State of the Lehigh Valley report, which was issued on Wednesday by the Lehigh Valley Research Consortium, a collaborative effort of local colleges and universities.

The comparison between the Valley and the nation holds true for most racial and ethnic groups including non-Hispanic whites, Asians and even African Americans, who outside of American Indians and native Alaskans are the most poverty-stricken people in the country.

Find out what's happening in Salisburywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But the Lehigh Valley economy has been less kind to Hispanic people, who are more inclined to drop below the poverty line and earn lower incomes than their brethren across the rest of the country, according to the report, which cited data culled from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

While the Lehigh Valley had an overall poverty rate of 10.2 percent in 2009 – compared to the nationwide rate of 14.3 percent – Lehigh Valley Hispanics fell below the poverty line at a rate of 27.4 percent. The nationwide poverty rate for Hispanics was closer to 20 percent.

Find out what's happening in Salisburywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Whites in the Lehigh Valley had a 6.2 percent poverty rate; blacks 19 percent.

The Lehigh Valley’s median household income in 2009 was $56,802, more than $6,000 higher than the nationwide median. But the median household income for Hispanics in the Lehigh Valley was about $35,000, about $5,000 less than the rest of the country.

The report acknowledges the local disparity for Hispanics, but doesn’t necessarily explain it.

Some other interesting findings from the study:

  • While the local economic recovery, which started in 2010 continued in 2011, it slowed and grew more slowly than Pennsylvania as a whole.
  • More than one half of all Valley residents whose incomes are below $15,000 a year are not able to afford healthy food and must make sacrifices in bills to afford food.
  • One out of five adults between the ages of 30 and 44 in the Lehigh Valley say they cannot afford to buy healthy food.
  • Juvenile crime, like adult crime, is on the decline.
  • About one-third of all Lehigh Valley residents said they experienced two or more weeks of depression in the past year.
  • Locally, Hispanics are twice as likely to feel depressed as non-Hispanics, low-income individuals are more than three times as likely to experience depression as those with high incomes, women are more inclined to be depressed than men and Allentown residents have the highest rate of depression of any section of the Valley.
  • Twenty percent of the Lehigh Valley’s residents have not visited a dentist in five years or more. Thirty percent of local low-income individuals have not seen a dentist in at least five years.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Salisbury