Detroit is poorest big city

From the Detroit Free Press:

Detroit is the nation's poorest big city, with about one in three residents living below the federal poverty level -- $19,157 in household income for a family of four.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday that 33.6% of Detroiters had income below the poverty level in 2004, compared with about 23% in 2002. In the two-year span, "you're talking somewhere easily between 75,000 to 80,000 more people living in poverty" in Detroit, said Kurt Metzger, research director of Wayne State University's Center for Urban Studies.

And nearly half of Detroit children 17 and younger lived in impoverished homes in 2004.

The two pieces of bad news come as Detroit struggles with a high unemployment rate, a municipal budget teetering on bankruptcy and its core auto industry struggling.