| Rockland County, New York, a ring suburb just northwest of New York City, is the smallest county in size in New York State, with a population of 288,567 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001) for the most part quite densely congregated within 174 square miles. The county’s population is growing, and becoming increasingly diverse. From 1990 to 2000, the county’s population grew faster than that of the state as a whole (8% as opposed to 5.5%), and the County has a larger proportion of children under the age of 5 than the state as a whole (7.6%, as opposed to 6.5%). (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000)
In terms of economic self-sufficiency, Rockland County is a place of stark contrasts. The median family income in Rockland County in 1999 was $78,806 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000), more than 6 times the official poverty level of $13,874 for a family of 3. While the percent of the population living below the federal poverty level is relatively low by national standards (9.5%), the number of children living below the federal poverty level is 17.4%. However, these figures mask the reality of life in Rockland County. The mean self-sufficiency income in Rockland County for a family of three (1 adult and 2 children) has been calculated at $38,238 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1999) -- almost three times the poverty level. So even though there are only 5 percent of families living below the federally defined poverty level, there are an additional 15 – 20 percent who are not attaining the level of self-sufficiency defined for Rockland County (Do the Math III: The Poverty Equation, 2001). This figure has serious implications for Rockland County, especially when applied to families with young children where for a single parent and two pre-schoolers the self sufficiency level is $45,252. It helps explain our lack of affordable housing, the limited supply of affordable quality child care, the employment niche for our growing number of immigrants and the stressors on parents needing to hold two or more low-wage jobs each to survive.
Moreover, poverty in Rockland County is growing at an alarming rate. The 1990 census reported 6.4% of population living below poverty level, 4.1% of whom were families and 9.6% were children. The number of Rockland public school children in grades K-6 receiving free school lunch increased by 6% from 1998/99 to 2000/01 school years.
Elie Ward, head of the New York Advocates for Youth described Rockland’s poverty this way: “You are struggling with suburban poverty, something invisible…You have to decide what kind of community you want…if people don’t have a place to live, they don’t see a future for themselves, then you are going to lose what you value most, which is your diversity and your communities. That is the struggle of suburban poverty”.
All of Rockland County’s demographic data point to a sharp rise in immigration. 19.1% of the county’s population is foreign born, with 27.3% being from the Caribbean (primarily the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica), and 16.5% from Central and South America (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). While the county has long had a noticeable and significant immigrant community, the growth of the foreign-born community is clearly accelerating. More than one-third (34.7%) of the county’s foreign-born population arrived between 1990 and 2000 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). The 2000 Census reported that 29.9% of the population speaks a language other than English at home, and 12.4% speaks English less than “very well”. From 1993 - 1998 one-third (33.3%) of the births in the county were to foreign-born mothers (far more than what would be expected from 19.1% of the population) (Population Division, NYC Department of City Planning, 2002).
5.8% of Rockland’s youth live in linguistically isolated homes (defined as a household in which all members 14 years of age and older speak a language other than English and also report speaking English less than “very well”) – this rate is 2.5 times greater than the rest of the state. Not surprisingly, the number of English language learners in Rockland’s public schools increased by 9% from the 1999/2000 school year to the 2000/01 school year. During the same time, the number of English language learners in the rest of the state increased by only 2%. These trends indicate that the county is facing a critical escalation of linguistically isolated English language learner children who will enter public school without the necessary language skills. 
Rockland County Census Data
|
