By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD – Coos County residents in northern New Hampshire have a median income that is about half as much as someone living in Rockingham County in the south and they face higher costs of living than their counterparts near the Massachusetts border, according to statistics gleaned from recently released U.S. Census Bureau data.

Phil Sletten, research director for the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, included these observations and a handful of other takeaways from data about New Hampshire’s well being in its blog.

The census bureau collected data and NHFPI examined it to sort out poverty rates, cost of housing and income to get a snapshot of what has been going on in the state from 2019 through 2023. 

Sletten’s takes, which are found here, https://nhfpi.org/blog/seven-n-h-takeaways-from-recent-u-s-census-data-income-gains-poverty-gaps-and-housing-challenges/ include some troubling differences and gaps by region.

The median income in the state in 2023 was $97,000. That was a nice uptick from 2022 when the average was $90,000. But in Coos County in 2023, the median income was $58,000 and that compares with Rockingham County at $114,000.

Using a living wage calculator developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that meant that a living wage could be achieved in Coos County with an income of $79,000 and $105,000 in Rockingham County.

There are also far higher poverty rates in the state’s north and west regions, Sletten found, with overall, the state having about 98,000 people living in poverty in 2023.

But by percentages, Coos County had a poverty rate of 12.9 on average for the years 2019 through 2023 and in Sullivan County, it was 10.8 percent.

It also found that people of color or with a disability had a significantly higher likelihood of living in poverty and that a quarter of those in poverty were single family mothers and their children.