Where home is makes a difference

 / U.S. Census Bureau, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
/ U.S. Census Bureau, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

It seems obvious that where you live says a lot about you. But maybe what it really says is that who you are and what you have done with your life are the most powerful determinants for where you do make your home.

The Providence-Warwick-Fall River metropolitan statistical area includes 1.3 million people. Twenty-six percent of them live in low- and moderate-income areas, as designated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. LMIs are defined as areas in which the median family income is less than 80 percent of the median family income of the entire metro area. The differences between residents of the two areas, while not unexpected, for the most part paint a picture of two different societies.

For example, while minorities form roughly one-sixth of the region’s population, they make up nearly half of the occupants of the LMIs. And while about half of all people 25 and older in the region have only a high school education or less, more than two-thirds of LMI residents find themselves in that situation. It is no surprise then that one-quarter of the household incomes in the LMI areas fall below the federal poverty line, twice as high a percentage as across the region.

One small surprise did come up in relation to housing. The percentage of households that are stressed, that is, pay an inordinately large percentage of income for rent, is roughly the same across the region, no matter where you live. •

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