The 2024 Waco Snapshot Report offers detailed insights into Waco's population, economy, housing, health and education to guide community improvements.
- Prosper Waco presented its 2024 Snapshot Report to the city council.
- The report includes statistics on population, demographics, income, and poverty rates.
- Detailed data on housing, health, food insecurity, and education are included.
- The report aims to guide city decisions to improve the community.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Prosper Waco's Dr. Jeremy Rhodes tells 25 News the 2024 Waco Snapshot Report is a tool for our community.
"It's meant as a resource for organizations, community leaders, and leaders of institutions to make data-driven decisions," Rhodes said. "And inform their strategy about pursuing well-being and justice throughout the community."
The report explores Waco's ever-changing social, demographic, and economic landscapes. On Tuesday, Dr. Rhodes presented some of its data to Waco's city council.
"Well, there's some good news and some not-so-good news," Dr. Rhodes said. "The good news is we've seen consistent improvements in our median income, we've seen consistent improvements in our poverty rates. We've seen consistent improvements in the percentage of residents with access to health insurance."
The report also shows some areas in our community are seeing improvement, but that improvement is not shared between the different racial and ethnic groups.
"For example, I told you we're seeing improvements in poverty rates overall," Dr. Rhodes said. "But if you break that down by race, what you'll see is that for White and Hispanic residents in our community is improving, but for Black residents in our community, the poverty rate is increasing."
Worsening conditions include housing affordability, teacher turnover, and mental distress.
So, how does Baylor influence the data?
"Any city that has a large concentration of college students is going to skew the poverty rate to some degree," Rhodes said.
Thousands of full-time students choosing not to work means.
"According to the Census Bureau, those folks are technically listed as in poverty because they have 0 or close to 0 income. But many of those students are not experiencing the hardships we associate with poverty."
Other significant gaps in our community include...Food insecurity is unevenly distributed, Income and poverty vary widely between neighborhoods and racial and ethnic groups, and maternal outcomes and life expectancy also vary significantly by race and ethnic group.
