The region's declining population, high proportion of elderly residents, low income and childhood poverty rate surface in a think tank's new report on conditions in the largest U.S. metropolitan areas.
Positive signs emerge, though, in educational attainment and inward migration, according to the Brookings Institution's State of Metropolitan America, which was released today.
The growth of the area's nonwhite population also outdistanced the national average.
"It probably feels like rapid change to folks who live in the region," said Alan Berube, project manager for the study at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
"I think the racial and ethnic diversity changes are a positive," said Teri Ooms, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Economic Development, a Wilkes-Barre-based think tank. "It will help diversify the economy."
Some signs are discouraging for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton Metropolitan Statistical Area.
"What may come as a shock is that 19 percent of the children in this metro area are living in poverty," Ms. Ooms said. "It's frightening and it affects all other indicators."
The region experienced a 1.9 percent population drop from 2000 to 2008 and 46 percent of the residents are over age 45, the sixth-oldest population among the largest 100 metro areas, the study concludes.
Median household income, at $42,230, ranked 97th and is 19 percent below the norm. The $15.67 average
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