Income inequality has increased in Boston over the past 20 years despite the fact that the poverty rate has remained stable, according to a recent study by the Boston Indicators Project.
The study, sponsored by The Boston Foundation, the City of Boston and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, was released last Wednesday as part of a decade-long project for the Boston Foundation, said Ted McEnroe, spokesman for the Boston Foundation.
“The project is a statistical look at the city of Boston,” McEnroe said in a phone interview. “As part of this project, [the Boston Foundation] began to see some of these trends written about in the poverty report.”
The study pointed to extreme income inequality in Boston, he said, as the number of wealthy and well-educated Bostonians has increased while poverty levels have not declined.
While this trend is visible nationwide, McEnroe said that Boston’s situation is still unique.
“Boston is certainly part of a national trend,” McEnroe said. “In Boston, the gap exists only more so because of the strength of our high-tech economy. You get punished more if you don’t have the education and skills to step into these jobs, so it enhances the gap.”
The “officially” poor of Boston are poorer than they were 20 years ago, a trend that the study attributes to the city’s high cost of living.
“There are some very real difficulties in breaking the generational effects of poverty,” said Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson, of Roxbury. “You see trauma and the deterioration of families, from economic as well as social factors.”
Still, officials from The Greater Boston Food Bank said they have noticed more short-term changes due to the economic downturn.
“Since the recession began, the number of people we’re feeding has risen by 23 percent between 2006 and 2010,” said Stacy Wong, spokeswoman for The Greater Boston Food Bank.
Wong said that the state as a whole has been affected by the economy.
“The need has not gone down,” Wong said. “The state’s high unemployment rate is taking its toll.”
Yet, Boston faces more severe poverty problems than much of the state, according to the study.
Massachusetts’ highest concentration of child poverty is located in Boston, specifically the Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan neighborhoods, the study said. In these areas, the child poverty rate is 42 percent.
“A recession in the city is a depression in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan,” Jackson said. “Many of these workers are most susceptible because they are low-skilled workers.”
In terms of finding solutions to Boston’s poverty problems, McEnroe said the Boston Foundation recognizes that there is no simple solution due to the current economic climate.
More than half of Boston’s population may face difficulties making ends meet in the city in the aftermath of the recession, according to the study.
“We are definitely aware of the disproportion of wealth and the effects on the poor,” Jackson said. “This creates an obstacle not only for today and right now, but for the future and future generations. This will be a very difficult obstacle to dig out of this hole.”
McEnroe said that spending is a multi-dimensional problem.
“For the city of Boston, some of these [programs] are being cut at the federal or state level,” he said.
Demand for safety-net programs, the study said, is growing despite budget cuts by the state.
However, to provide future workers the skills needed for a technology-based work force, McEnroe said he poses one solution.
“One thing the city can do is strengthen its education system,” he said. “We can get students into post-secondary level schools.”
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