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Poverty Rate Falls In Forsyth County

The poverty rate for Winston-Salem was down almost three percentage points in 2015. Photo credit: tweber1 for Wikipedia.

Poverty is declining in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, according to the latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Annual Community Survey shows that the poverty rate for those 18 and over in Forsyth County dropped from about 17 percent to just under 15 percent in 2015.

Numbers show that the rate in Winston-Salem also dropped nearly three percentage points to 18.6 percent.

The Winston-Salem Journal quotes Mayor Allen Joines as saying the figures are “obviously good news.”

Joines says an anti-poverty task force is working on getting those numbers down even further.

Poverty rates were down significantly in Davidson County, dropping nearly four percentage points overall.

According to the survey, there were no significant changes in Guilford, Surry and Rockingham counties.

The poverty threshold in 2015 was just over $24,000 for a family of two adults and two children.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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