Comments on: Hoosier household income down 10%

By: RedPost : Blog

RedPost : Blog — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:55:03 +0000

[...] Some stats gleaned from the Ind. Dept. of Workforce Devel.’s extensive website: Elkhart County’s annual earnings have increased 10.4% with a labor force increase of 8.7% since 2002, still below the state’s average per capita income level. This compares to a 11.3% earnings increase with a .9% labor force increase in neighboring St. Joseph county. Suprisingly (to me), Elkhart’s average annual income is higher than St. Joe’s. Statewide, Indiana’s median household income has fallen 10% since 1999 when accounting for inflation. [...]

By: Pila

Pila — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:15:40 +0000

My sister missed out on going to Pizza King on her last visit from Cali. Poor thing.

By: Glenn

Glenn — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:10:08 +0000

Don’t know that I’ve ever had an Eastern Pizza King pizza, but I can vouch for the Avon Pizza King being pretty good…however, I still would prefer Mother Bear’s or Cafe Pizzaria in Bloomington!

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:20:03 +0000

Pizza King is definitely my pizza of choice as well — but only if it’s made in the eastern half of the state. I think the franchises are divided so that the western half gets its supplies from a different company than the eastern half. Western Indiana Pizza Kings are not nearly as good.

Around Lafayette, I’ve come to love close seconds like Arni’s and Monicals.

By: unioncitynative

unioncitynative — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:13:40 +0000

Amen to that Doug, every time I go to Muncie to visit I’ve got to have a Pizza King pizza. My sister lives near Pendleton and when I go to visit her, we always have to get a Pizza King pizza. I think our family must be Pizza King groupies. That brings back memories of college days at Ball State, great pizza to wash down a cold beer with.

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:20:36 +0000

Yeah, but you’ve gotta admit that there is better pizza in Muncie.

By: T

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:51:02 +0000

Having done part of my medical training in Bloomington, Indy, and Muncie, I recall a much more prominent crack cocaine problem in Muncie than in Bloomington. Also as stated above there just aren’t the same grim, horribly impoverished areas in Bloomington that there are in Muncie.

By: Pila

Pila — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:17:06 +0000

Interesting discussion, as per usual. :)
Glenn, you make an excellent point. I only read the Yahoo! story and didn’t go to the census website. I wonder if the Census people could do or have done a similar survey that either excludes college students or takes that population into account before making the rankings of poorest communities.

ManfromMiddletown: I have little doubt about Muncie’s inclusion on the list, given the reasons you and unioncitynative cited. Students may skew the rankings a little for Muncie, but probably not every much. Bloomington *appears* to be fairly prosperous when compared to Muncie, however. I do wonder how much its inclusion on the list is based upon the large student population.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:18:10 +0000

I don’t think West Lafayette by itself has a big enough population for that survey. I think it’s just shy of 30,000.

By: ManfromMiddletown

ManfromMiddletown — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 03:08:56 +0000

Responding to the concerns raised that the poverty numbers given are skewed by the presence of students, wouldn’t that also indicate that West Lafayette should be on this list? After all West Lafayette has a far higher concentration of students as a percentage of the population than either Muncie or Bloomington.

Having lived in both Muncie and West Lafayette, I can say that there’s a qualatitive difference between the two cities. Even in the worst neighborhoods in Lafayette you will not find the level of absolute poverty that you find in most of Muncie (everywhere but the northwest side.)

On the east side of Muncie in Whitely, there a still homes with neither indoor plumbing, nor electricity.

One interesting way to look at this would be by Census tract, and exclude near the campus.