Roger Green, who runs the
New York State Data Center Affiliates Blog notes that a recent report from the Census Bureau finds that 22 percent of households experienced one or more possible “hardships” in
fulfilling their basic needs in the previous 12 months. These hardships
included difficulty meeting essential expenses such as not paying rent or
mortgage; getting evicted; not paying utilities; having utilities or
phone service cut off; not seeing a doctor or dentist when needed; or not
always having enough food. Among all households, 9 percent experienced
exactly one of them, 7 percent experienced two of the hardships and 6
percent endured three or more of these problems.
These statistics come from
Extended Measures of Well-Being: Living Conditions in the United States: 2011,
a report based on the Survey of Income and Program Participation. The
report measures well-being based on housing conditions, neighborhood
conditions, community services, possession of specific types of
appliances and electronic goods, the ability to meet basic needs and the
expectation of help in meeting these needs ─ if necessary ─ from
friends, family and the community. These measures are compared both
across demographic groups and over time.
For example, the chart below shows the different hardships being faced by different age groups.
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| Click to Enlarge |
What is interesting is how each group appears to place varying importance on different aspects of their lives. For example, among the youngest population (those 15 to 29 year old) the most common hardship they faced was unpaid utility bills. This was followed by not seeing a dentist when needed, and failing to pay their rent or mortgage. this is considerably different than the hardships facing the middle aged population (those 45 to 49 years old). Among middle aged Americans, the most common hardships faced were not seeing a dentist, not paying utilities, and not seeing a doctor when needed.
The report has many other insightful pieces and is well worth looking at. Unfortunately there is no locally comparative data.
