New Census Figures Offer Hope in Buffalo's Fight Against Child Poverty
While poverty remains a big problem in Buffalo, new census figures show significant drops in the poverty rates for children, African-Americans and Latino residents.
The child poverty fell 10 percentage points to 44 percent, the lowest rate since at least 2010.
The poverty rate for minority groups remains higher than the overall poverty rate in the city, but the recently released 2016 American Community Survey showed the percentage of African-American and Latino residents living in poverty has dropped sharply.
"Reducing poverty requires a community wide approach," said Mayor Byron W. Brown. "The collaborative plan that we have put in place in the city is helping to reduce poverty rates in Buffalo, especially childhood poverty, and the latest Census numbers demonstrate that our plan is working. Childhood poverty is still much higher than we would like to see and clearly we all have much more work to do.” . . .