Findings
X. Economy, Employment and Welfare
Highlights
- Non-farm jobs in Cortland County have increased from 19,400 in January 2001 to 19,600 in May 2005 (Table EW-1).
- Like the nation, Cortland County continues to experience a decline in manufacturing and an increase in the service industry jobs (Tables EW-1 and EW-3).
- A 2004 living wage study concluded that a single person would have to earn $10.70/hour or $22,255 annually to be minimally self-sufficient, with the employee paying for their own health insurance (Table EW-2).
- Cortland unemployment has consistently been higher than that for NYS as a whole (Table EW-6), however, it is not among the worst or the best NYS counties in terms of unemployment according to Graph EW-4.
- Poverty is more prevalent in the City of Cortland compared to the county (Table EW-5).
- More children receive food stamps in Cortland County than upstate NY (EW- 9).
- The number of children on public assistance in the county is fairly consistent with upstate NY (Table EW-8).
- The number of monthly cases for food stamps and Medicaid grew fairly consistently throughout 2004 (Table EW-10).
- The number of meals served by the food pantries increased by 57% between 1996 and 2004 (Table EW-11).
- The number of full time farms in the county increased between 1992 and 2002 but the average size of the farm is smaller and the amount of land being farmed has decreased (Table EW-13).
- There are one hundred and seventy-eight dairy farms that milk 14,117 cows, producing annual sales revenue of $36,000,000 (Table EW-13 and EW-17).
- Median and per capita incomes in Cortland County are lower than NYS. Table D-3 shows the 1999 comparisons and Table EW-14 updates current data to 2002.
- Most people are experiencing losses in income. Graph EW-5 compares the percent of changes in income quintiles shares from 1967-1999 for the U.S.