POVERTY DECLINING IN L.A. CENSUS FIGURES SHOW RISE IN VALLEY, HOWEVER.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

Los Angeles defied a national trend by showing a sharp drop in its poverty rolls between 2000 and 2002, while the percentage of poor in the San Fernando Valley continued to grow closer to the citywide level, according to new U.S. Census figures Wednesday.

Overall, the number of Los Angeles' poor declined by nearly 39,000, marking a 1.4 percentage point drop to 18.8 percent. It was 23.1 percent in 1990.

The Valley, however, which saw a surge in poverty in the 1990s from 11 percent to 15 percent, continued to see an increase in the first two years of this decade. At 15.3 percent, the Valley is just 3.5 percentage points behind the city as a whole today.

Overall, Los Angeles saw an increase in median incomes in its increasingly immigrant population.

The city fell from 13th in 2000 into a tie for 27th with Lexington-Fayette, Ky., among cities with the highest poverty rates, according to the Census Bureau. Long Beach was 10th, with a 22.6 percent poverty rate.

Los Angeles now has a lower poverty rate than either Chicago or New York City. The U.S. rate is about 12.4 percent, with 1.5 million more people living in poverty.

``It's not because people in the Valley got poorer,'' said Daniel Blake, director of the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at Californian State University, Northridge, who supplied the Valley figures.

``It's that the Valley has become more a port of entry for people coming into the United States. Los Angeles has generally been a port of entry, but the Valley just emerged as that primarily in the last decade.''

Local economists said the new census data is the first concrete evidence Los Angeles is doing better than much of the country in weathering the sagging economy, attributing it to a diverse business climate and an immigrant population seeking business and educational opportunities.

``What we're seeing are some very interesting performances going on in Los Angeles,'' said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

``It says the immigrant base wants better for their children, and they're pushing education,'' Kyser said. ``We're finding there's a lot of push to get kids into college and community colleges.''

Los Angeles' immigrants grew from 41.1 percent of the population in 2000, to 41.3 percent in 2002, or third-highest after Miama and Santa Ana.

The Hispanic population grew by 3 percentage points to 49.9 percent of the population, according to the new figures.

All other major non-Hispanic groups declined, led by a 1.5 percent decrease in blacks, a 1.2 percent decrease in whites, and a 0.4 percent decrease in Asians.

Ranking 60th in high school and college graduation rates, Los Angeles did improve 3.8 percentage points between 2000 and 2002. The city now has 71.4 percent of the population 25 years or older with at least a high school diploma. Seattle, the highest West Coast city, had a rate of 91.1 percent.

Los Angeles' median household income increased from $37,051 to $39,139, a 5.6 percent increase.

The biggest increase was among middle-class households, with almost 24,000 more households making $50,000 to $74,999 in 2002 than in 2000, the census figures show.

Chuck Nelson, U.S. Census Bureau assistant division chief for income, poverty and health statistics, said the middle class might have helped Los Angeles run counter to the national trend.

``Rising middle-class incomes have a direct impact on poverty,'' Nelson said. ``More people in the population are better insulated when there's an economic downturn.''

A diverse mix of small- and medium-size businesses - to some extent supplanting the aerospace exodus of the 1990s - has offered more jobs and training to immigrants, who have responded by pursuing the American dream, economists said.

``These are very productive and loyal workers. They're sort of our secret weapon,'' Kyser said.

The biggest job gains were in service occupations, and in educational, health and social services fields. Professional and management jobs, however, declined by about 20,000.

Daniel Flaming, president of the Economic Roundtable, a downtown research group, said the new census numbers might reflect an immigrant population that's making more economic gains as it becomes more settled.

``It's the first reports of these trends that I know of; it's encouraging,'' Flaming said.

The population also is aging slightly from a median 31.4 years to 32.1. The number of children under age 5 declined 0.8 percentage points.

The new census data is from the bureau's American Community Survey, which looked at more than 742,000 U.S. households in 2002. Because there are margins of error in the sampling, some demographers warned that the results should be treated cautiously and tested against other economic data.

William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., said the city could be experiencing a kind of reverse migration, with the poorest and least educated having left to seek better opportunities elsewhere.

``It leaves the cream of the crop, making the remaining population look better,'' Frey said.

Los Angeles' high housing and other costs also might have forced some of the poorest to move, he said.

``People who can afford it will stay. Those who can't, will leave.''

Beth Barrett, [phone]

beth.barrett(at)dailynews.com

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L.A.'S CHANGING FACE

SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau

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