The role of grandparents looms large in the care of children in Albuquerque households.
There are 222,748 households in Albuquerque, and more than 26% of those households have one or more people age 65 or older.
Of 10,782 grandparents living with grandchildren, 44.2% were responsible for the basic needs of their grandchildren, according to recently released profiles from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
The numbers, five-year averages and estimates from 2014 through 2018, offer snapshots of the community in selected social, economic, housing and demographic measurements.
An average of 15.1% of households in Albuquerque received food stamps (or SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) in the years 2014 through 2018. Of those households, an estimated 46.3% had children under 18, and 25.5% had one or more people age 60 years and over. Of all households receiving SNAP benefits, 31.4% were families with a female head of house and no husband present, while 30.4% of families had two or more household members working in the past 12 months.
All told, 76.2% of Albuquerque households had some kind of income, and of those households 28.9% received Social Security and 19.3% received retirement income other than Social Security. The average income from Social Security was $18,340. These income sources are not mutually exclusive, and some households received income from more than one source.
From 2014 through 2018, an average of 17.6% of Albuquerque residents had incomes below the federal poverty level and 24.7% of children under age 18 lived in poverty. Among residents age 18-64, 16.8% were below the poverty level.
On the employment front, 59.5% of people age 16 and older were employed, while just over 36% were not in the labor force. The survey did not indicate how many of those people over age 16 were retired or unable to work because of a disability.
Among those in the workforce, just over 75% were wage and salary workers employed in the private sector; just over 19% worked in federal, state or local government; and just over 5% were self employed.
The median income of households in Albuquerque was $51,128, with 8.5% of households having incomes below $10,000 a year and 4.3% having household incomes over $200,000 a year. The largest group of households, 17.3%, had incomes ranging from $50,000 to $74,999 a year.
The median earnings for full-time, year-round workers was $42,489. Broken down by gender, the median full-time year-round earnings for male workers was $46,462, while the median earnings for females was $39,511.
Among the civilian non-institutionalized population in Albuquerque from 2014 through 2018, an average of 91.1% had health insurance coverage and 8.9% had none. Private coverage was used by 60.9% of residents and government coverage was used by 41.4%. The percentage of children under age 19 with no health insurance coverage was 3.8%.
About 10% of Albuquerque residents were foreign-born. Of them, 43% were naturalized U.S. citizens, 84.9% of them entered the country before 2010, and 63% come from Latin American countries.
Among Albuquerque residents age 5 and older, 28.7% spoke a language other than English at home, the most common of those languages being Spanish, spoken by 22.7%. Just over 7% reported that they did not speak English very well.
Of Albuquerqueans reporting to be of one race alone, 73.5% were white, 3.2% were black, 4.6% were American Indian and Alaska Native, 2.8% were Asian, 0.1% were Native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander, and 11.3% were some other race.
An estimated 4.5% reported belonging to two or more races.
Nearly half, 49% of Albuquerque residents, reported they were Hispanic, about the same percentage as the state as a whole, and 39.4% of residents reported they were white non-Hispanic. People of Hispanic origin may be of any race.
Of people age 25 and older, 89.7% had at least graduated from high school and 34.7% had a bachelor’s degree or higher. More than 10% did not complete high school.
Albuquerque’s average school enrollment from 2014 through 2018 was 149,097. That number includes nursery school enrollment of 7,801, kindergarten through 12th grade enrollment of 93,022, and college or graduate school enrollment of 48,274.
Among the city’s non-institutionalized population, 13.2% reported they had a disability. The likelihood of having a disability varied by age – from 3.6% of people under 18 years old, to 11.4% of people 18 to 64 years old, and to 36% of those 65 and over. The survey did not distinguish between physical and mental disabilities.
Albuquerque residents are apparently not environmentally conscious when it comes to personal transportation. More than 80% of those employed drove to work alone in the years 2014-2018, while just over 9% carpooled. The average commute time to work was 21.6 minutes.
By: Rick Nathanson (ABQ Journal)
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