The Business Journal is reporting that Hudson has the lowest poverty rate in all of New York State.
Really? Lower than Rye? Rhinebeck? Even the biggest Hudson boosters wouldn’t make such a claim. So how was this computed, one wonders? Three theories:
1. By "Hudson," they really mean "12534" or "the Hudson micropolitan area." These would include not just Hudson, but also Greenport, and parts of Claverack, Taghkanic and Livingston. A few Germantown, Stockport and Ghent residents may even have 12534 ZIP codes.
2. Some weird averaging is going on. If you had 10 people, 9 of whom make $10,000 a yea, but one of them makes $500,000, their average income would be $59,000—even though 90% of them are poor. One would hope the Census and BizJournal folks would catch that, though.
3. They only included small cities, big cities, and the aforesaid “micropolitan” areas, excluding larger places like Rye and Rhinebeck, which are technically towns.
