"You just pray you don’t get sick."

- Nathaniel Washington, Dayton Resident

Between the decades of 1970 to 2000, the city of Dayton has lost nearly one third of its population due to the vanishing of manufacturing jobs and high income residents.  This has led to a severe eroding of the city’s tax base and its ability to confront the issue of poverty. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2005 figures, Dayton is ranked as the ninth poorest medium-sized-city in the United States in terms of median income; Dayton’s is $25,928.  In 2005, the level poverty in the United States decreased for the first time in four years.  This, however, was not the case for Ohio, where income has continued to decrease, the poverty level rise and the people without health insurance increase to 1.3 million₍₁₎.  The situation in Dayton reflects this reality, where about 18.2% of families and 23.0% of the population were below the poverty line₍₂₎.  According to the National League of Cities, a non-profit advocacy and lobbying group based in Washington, D.C., 40 percent of Dayton’s children live in poverty, more than twice the national rate.  Furthermore, as of 1999, Dayton also had nearly twice the unemployment rate of the U.S. as a whole (9.2 percent to 4.9) ₍₃₎.

The traditionally wealthier suburbs surrounding Dayton have increasingly been exposed to the plight of poverty. For example, in Warren County, the second fastest growing county in Ohio, the numbers of the working poor and the homeless has increased, and the greatest portion of this growth is among families, who are faced with low paying jobs and high living expenses. 

Click here for more information on poverty in Dayton.