In addition to Shelby (44.2 percent) and Baldwin (42.9 percent) counties, the remainder of the top 10 fastest growing counties in Alabama were:

Blount 33.9 percent
Elmore 33.9 percent
Lee 32.1 percent
St. Clair 29.5 percent
Autauga 27.6 percent
Bibb 25.6 percent
Chilton 22.0 percent
Limestone 21.3 percent

The counties with the largest total populations were:

1. Jefferson 662,047
2. Mobile 399,843
3. Madison 276,700
4. Montgomery 223,510
5. Tuscaloosa 164,875
6. Shelby 143,293
7. Baldwin 140,415
8. Lee 115,092
9. Calhoun 112,249
10. Morgan 111,064

The latest census figures also reflect an increase in the state’s Hispanic population.

“In our country, racial designation is by self identification,” Watters said. “That is, a person is the race he says he is. Federal government guidelines on racial identification are designed to reflect the opinions that people have of themselves. The guidelines do not use biological standards or federal eligibility standards to determine a person’s race.

“In keeping with that philosophy, the federal government has implemented new standards for racial reporting that allow people to identify themselves as belonging to more than one race. Census 2000 was the first, and most visible, use of these new standards. In Alabama, 99 percent of the population reported on their census forms that they belong to only one race. One percent reported that they belong to two, or more, races.”

In Alabama, Census 2000 reveals the percentage of the population who belong to only one race was as follows:

White 71.1 percent
Black or African American 26.0 percent
American Indian 0.5 percent
Asian 0.7 percent
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander 0.0 percent
Some Other Race 0.7 percent

“The definitional differences between the 1990 and the 2000 censuses make it difficult to compare results by race,” Watters said. “It is hard to say if certain racial groups are increasing in Alabama, or if people simply chose to identify themselves differently in 2000 from what they did in 1990.”

“Hispanic origin is not a racial category; it is a statement of ethnicity,” Watters said. “Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.”

According to Watters, Census 2000 reports 75,830 Hispanics in Alabama, three times the number reported in 1990. Hispanics make up 1.7 percent of the total population in the state, although the concentration is much larger in some counties of the state than in others. Some counties saw a large increase in their Hispanic residents, and some counties noticed very little difference over the decade.

The counties with the largest Hispanic populations are:

1. Jefferson 10,284
2. Madison 5,226
3. Mobile 4,887
4. Marshall 4,656
5. Morgan 3,645
6. De Kalb 3,578
7. Shelby 2,910
8. Blount 2,718
9. Montgomery 2,668
10. Baldwin 2,466

Watters also said that about one percent of all employees in Alabama work for an African American-owned business. “That means there were 13,232 people employed in Alabama by black-owned firms in 1997,” she said. “The annual payroll for black-owned businesses in Alabama in 1997 was $232 million.”

Half of the state’s African American-owned firms are in the service industry and account for 46 percent of gross receipts of African American-owned businesses. Retail trade firms, on the other hand, account for 13 percent of total African American-owned Alabama firms but 16 percent of the gross receipts.

The largest number of black-owned firms – 5,045 – was in the Birmingham Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), followed by Mobile (2,770), Montgomery (2,064), Huntsville (1,709) and Tuscaloosa (882).

“Thirty-six of Alabama’s 67 counties had 100 or more black-owned firms in 1997,” Watters said. “Of Alabama’s metropolitan areas, only the Auburn-Opelika MSA had fewer than 100 black-owned firms, the smallest number for which the Department of Commerce would make separate tabulations.”

The Alabama State Data Center is part of the UA Center for Business and Economic Research, which was created in 1930 to promote economic development in the state while expanding and refining its base of socioeconomic information.

Both centers are part of The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, which was founded in 1919, and which first began offering graduate education in 1923.

“This statistic does not mean that Alabamians have renounced marriage and family, ” said Annette Watters, manager of the Alabama State Data Center at The University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research. “Many married couples in Alabama are families that no longer have children living at home. Other families in the state are made up of single parents raising children alone,” Ms. Watters said. She pointed out that 22.5 percent of households are married couples with children, another 8.1 percent are single mothers raising their children alone, and 1.7 percent of households are headed by fathers raising children alone. Altogether, nearly one-third of Alabama households have children living in them.

Ms. Watters said the proportion of family households in Alabama has decreased over the last decade and the proportion of nonfamily households has increased.

“Nonfamily households are made up of people living by themselves or people living with someone to whom they are not related,” she said. “People living together in nonfamilies could be roommates or unmarried partners.” The number of unmarried couples in Alabama has more than doubled since 1990 to 58,537 in 2000, according to the Census 2000.

Ms. Watters said the new numbers related to the complicated make up of Alabama families and other living arrangements have important implications for policy makers. “If about two-thirds of all households in Alabama do not contain children, it can be harder to generate support for public education and other child-centered issues,” she said.

The data also shows the percentage of one-person households rose significantly during the 1990s—from just less than 24 percent of all households in Alabama to just over 26 percent. Although the number of senior citizens is increasing, it is not the older people who are swelling the ranks of single-person households. In fact, the percentage of one-person households headed by a person over 65 dropped slightly between 1990 and 2000.

“The image of ever-increasing numbers of elderly people living alone is not entirely accurate,” Ms. Watters said. “Most singles living by themselves are younger.

People are marrying later. A vibrant economy has allowed young people to leave their parents’ houses and live on their own. And high divorce rates leave some people living alone, at least for a time.” She said the trend toward smaller households began at least two decades ago and continues. In 1990 the average number of persons per household in Alabama was 2.62. In 2000 it was 2.49.

But, Ms. Watters said, “percentages don’t tell the whole story. The percentage of households headed by women went down, as did the percentage of households with children under the age of 18 headed by women. But because the total population grew, the number of female-headed households with children actually increased during the 1990s, from 132,896 single-mom families in 1990 to 141,057 in 2000.”

Frequently a two-parent family has two sources of income, according to Ms. Watters. “Sometimes single mothers encounter conflicts in providing both a steady income and high-quality child care,” she said. “In fact, unmarried motherhood is one of the strongest predictors of poverty. While it is gratifying to see the percentage of single-mother families declining in the state, it is also important for the state’s economy, as well as for the families, for the absolute numbers to decline as well.”

Following national trends, the aging of the baby boom generation helped push Alabama’s median age up from 33.0 in 1990 to 35.8 in 2000. Population in the 45 to 54 year old group jumped over 43 percent as the oldest baby boomers approached 55 in 2000. This changing age structure strongly influences the composition of Alabama’s households and families, Ms. Watters said.

According to Watters, the Office of Management and Budget directed the Census Bureau to list Hispanic as an ethnic group, not a race, reasoning that Hispanics may be of any race. “Despite the federal government’s official position, many Hispanics think of themselves as Hispanic by race,” Watters said, pointing out that recent data released for Alabama tends to confirm that people might have had trouble with that question on the census form.

For example, Watters said, nearly 49 percent of Alabama Hispanics listed their race as white. About 8 percent thought of themselves as Black or African American Hispanics. A few hundred listed themselves as American Indian, Asian, or Pacific Islander Hispanics. But a large number, 35 percent, chose “None of the Above.”

“They were sure they are Hispanic, but they didn’t identify with any of the race choices, perhaps because they think Hispanic is their race,” Watters said.

An additional 5,000 of Alabama’s Hispanic population, or about 7 percent, marked that they are two or more races. Overall in Alabama, less than 1 percent of the population marked two or more races.

“The suspicion is that the Hispanics who marked two or more races were considering Hispanic to be one of the two (or more) racial groups to which they belong,” Watters said. “Even though the federal government doesn’t recognize Hispanic as a race, that doesn’t change people’s perceptions of themselves. And the data we get from the census come from the way people marked their forms.”

Census information about any county in Alabama can be obtained at http://cber.cba.ua.edu.

The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, founded in 1919, first began offering graduate education in 1923. Its Center for Business and Economic Research was created in 1930, and since that time has engaged in research programs to promote economic development in the state while continuously expanding and refining its base of socioeconomic information.

According to Watters, the number of houses held for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use increased 32 percent during the 1990s, or 11,457 more housing units of that category in 2000 than in 1990.

“In fact, 2.4 percent of all the housing units in Alabama are second homes of some kind,” Watters said. “These seasonal or recreational housing units could be a condo at the beach, a cabin on the lake, a mobile home in the country as a hunting or fishing retreat, or any other variety of permanent housing a person or family might use occasionally during the year.”

Areas of Alabama with a tourism industry show a bigger percent of this category of housing than other areas of the state, Watters said. “For example, 16 percent of all the housing units in Baldwin County are for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use rather than for permanent, fulltime residents.”

“Baldwin County is a fast-growing part of the state, but not all its growth is tourism related. Most of the housing growth there during the last decade was in owner-occupied homes. Baldwin County’s growth can be attributed to more than one reason. An apt analogy for Baldwin County is that a rising tide floats many boats,” she said.

An improving economy also made a difference in the mix of homeowners versus renters in Alabama over the last decade, Watters said. “Owner-occupied housing increased by 18.5 percent, versus a 7.6 percent increase in renter-occupied housing. There were 293,332 more owner-occupied houses in Alabama in 2000 than in 1990,” she said.

According to Watters, African-American home ownership increased at a faster rate than white home ownership. “Blacks in the state had some catching up to do because home ownership has never been as prevalent among African-Americans as among whites. Home ownership by blacks increased much faster than for Alabama’s white population.”

“Even though Alabama’s black households were increasingly likely to be owners rather than renters, in 2000 there was still a large percentage of the black population who were renters. Forty-three percent of the state’s black households were renting and 57 percent were buying their homes. By contrast, 22 percent of white households were renting and 78 percent were homeowners.”

The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, founded in 1919, first began offering graduate education in 1923. Its Center for Business and Economic Research was created in 1930, and since that time has engaged in research programs to promote economic development in the state while continuously expanding and refining its base of socioeconomic information.

Per Capita Income Loses Ground

Per capita personal income (PCPI) reached $23,471 in Alabama for 2000, 79.1 percent of the U.S. average of $29,676. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) calculates this widely used measure of economic well-being as earnings; dividends, interest, and rent; and transfer payments per resident. During the 1990s, Alabama per capita income rose 48.2 percent, while U.S. per capita income increased 51.5 percent. Below average gains dropped Alabama’s per capita income ranking from 42nd in 1990 to 44th in 2000. Yet Alabama has come a long way in the 50 years since 1950 when per capita income of $909 was 60.2 percent of the U.S. average and ranked 48th. Still there is cause for concern that after steadily closing the gap in the decades of the 1950s through the 1980s, Alabama has fallen behind in the 1990s.

Wide Disparities Remain Among Counties

In 1999, the latest year for which county per capita income is available, Alabama’s estimated per capita income of $22,972 amounted to 80.5 percent of the U.S. average. Per capita income in Alabama’s 67 counties varied widely, however, as seen in Figure 1. Residents of only two counties, Jefferson and Shelby, had incomes exceeding the U.S. average of $28,546. Another seven counties—Baldwin, Coffee, Houston, Madison, Montgomery, Morgan, and Tuscaloosa—fell below the national but above the state average. In 41 counties, per capita income was below the state but above 65 percent of the U.S. average. Income in Alabama’s 17 poorest counties fell below 65 percent of U.S. per capita income in 1999.

There is a wide disparity among Alabama’s richest and poorest counties. Per capita income averaged $15,420 in Alabama’s six poorest counties in 1999, just 57.1 percent of the $27,002 average for the six wealthiest. The gap between the bottom six and the top six narrowed considerably in the ten years from 1969 to 1979, with the ratio rising from 46.3 percent to 60.1 percent. However, a sizeable difference between rich and poor remains and has widened since 1979, with the 1999 ratio at 57.1 percent.

Over the last 31 years, Alabama’s poor counties have generally stayed poor and the rich have stayed rich. Only 11 of the state’s 67 counties have cracked the top six in per capita income during this time, as shown in Table 1. Four counties—Jefferson, Madison, Montgomery, and Morgan—have been there every year; Shelby joined in 1971. Baldwin, which was in the group for a few years in the late 1970s, displaced Houston in the top six in 1996. Many of Alabama’s poorest counties have also been in the cellar for most of the last 31 years. Greene and Perry have always been there; Lowndes, Sumter, and Wilcox have been there well over 20 years, including 1999; and Hale, which spent 27 years in the bottom six, now ranks seventh from the bottom. Macon, also in the bottom six in 1999, has been in the group for about half of the last 31 years, as has Bullock, which was just above, at 60th, in 1999.

Long-term Income Growth Varies

Some Alabama counties have been much more successful than others in fostering and attracting well-paying jobs that can improve the economic status of their residents. Most Alabama counties saw their per capita income rankings change between 1969 and 1999, with about half going up and half down (see Table 2). Several counties, including Calhoun and Dale, saw income rankings decline as a result of outside factors—in these cases, a reduced military presence. Others lacked the resources to compete as economies evolved in the wake of burgeoning technology.

In general, counties in metropolitan areas fared better than their nonmetro counterparts. Alabama’s 22 MSA counties averaged per capita incomes of $24,482 in 1999, or 106.6 percent of the Alabama average of $22,972. Residents of the state’s 45 nonmetro counties had, on average, just 79.3 percent of the income of metro area residents. This gap has narrowed slightly since 1969 when nonmetro income was 74.0 percent of the metro average.

Income Inequality Increasing

Income inequality among Alabama’s families grew over the last two decades. Using data from the Census Bureau’s March Current Population Surveys, the Public Policy Institute studied income changes for population quintiles in each state during the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In 46 states, including Alabama, the income gap between the richest and poorest 20 percent of families widened. From the late 1970s to the late 1990s, Alabama’s wealthiest families saw the largest increases in real income (38 percent, or $33,000), while Alabama’s poorest families experienced the smallest gains (17 percent, or $1,610). (See Figure 2.) In contrast, however, the poorest fifth of families in 18 states faced real income declines. The income gap between Alabama’s richest and poorest ranked 11th worst among the 50 states, while the discrepancy between the richest and middle fifths ranked 24th. In the late 1990s, Alabama’s poorest families held 5 percent of the state’s income (Figure 3), while the wealthiest families held 45 percent.

Economic Prosperity Not Equally Shared

Across Alabama, economic prosperity has not been shared equally between Alabama counties and among residents of each county. Interrelated factors, including long-standing poverty, low education levels, and lack of economic opportunity, are depressing income growth in Alabama. Wage inequality among the highest paid and middle- to low-wage workers has increased. Globalization, declining manufacturing jobs, expanding low-wage service and trade jobs, and weakening of labor market institutions have contributed to the erosion of wages for workers without technical or college training.

Only by helping her poorest citizens become educated, productive participants in the state’s economy, by developing tax policies that help mitigate the effects of increased income inequality, and by attracting and nurturing higher wage jobs can Alabama pull itself out of the income cellar.

Of the 67 counties in Alabama, there are 10, all in the Black Belt region, having a black majority. Conversely, there are 13 counties, all in the northern half of the state, where less than 10 percent of the population is African American.

Asian. Nationally, 0.9 percent of the American population is Asian. In Alabama 0.7 percent is Asian, accounting for 31,346 people. The Asian presence is small and highly concentrated in a few counties, largely in the metro areas. Jefferson, Madison, and Mobile Counties each have more than 5,000 Asians. Montgomery, Lee, Tuscaloosa, and Shelby have 2,200 or fewer each, and other counties’ numbers drop off sharply from there. Several counties have fewer than 10 Asian persons living there.

Hispanic. No county in Alabama comes close to approximating the U.S. Hispanic population share. Nationally, 12.5 percent of the American population is Hispanic. Counties in Alabama that have seen an influx of Hispanics in the last decade now have 5 to 7 percent Hispanic population. Some counties have experienced very little Hispanic immigration at all. Just 28 Alabama counties account for 81 percent of the state’s Hispanic population. Several counties have fewer than 100 Hispanic people. The largest concentration of Hispanics, 10,284, is in Jefferson County, accounting for 1.6 percent of Jefferson County’s total. Other Deep South metro areas—Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, Greensboro-Winston Salem-High Point, Atlanta— experienced 300 to 600 percent increases in Hispanic population during the 1990s and have Hispanic populations tens of thousands greater than Birmingham’s.

The diffusion of minorities across Alabama is less rapid and far less pervasive than recent press accounts imply. While residents in Alabama counties with no Hispanic presence a decade ago have been talking about the recent difference, broadly speaking, Alabama is still an ethnic frontier for immigrant minorities. We can expect ethnic pioneers to continue trekking into Alabama during the current decade; Census 2010 should have a new and different story to tell.

Annette Jones Watters