The U.S. Census released its 2019 estimates Thursday, and Cleveland has once again lost population.
The current estimate places Cleveland at 381,009 people, down about 2,800 total and 0.7 percent from the 2018 estimate. Cleveland’s population is declining at a slower rate than in decades past, but the downward trend has continued unabated since the official 1950 census, when Cleveland reached its zenith at more than 900,000 people.
Cleveland remains Ohio’s second-largest (and most culturally significant) city, but both Columbus and Cincinnati made small gains in 2019, according to the census survey.
Poverty is on the rise as well in Cleveland, a statistic destined to get increasingly grim as the economic fallout of the global pandemic persists. Cleveland now has an estimated 30.8 percent of its residents living in poverty, making it the poorest large city in the country, taking the dubious honor from Detroit, which had held the mark since 2010. (Perhaps Clevelanders should put the “At least we’re not Detroit” line back in their pockets for now.)
Nationwide, 10.5 percent of citizens live in poverty. Cleveland remains among the most destitute cities in the country. Its median household income, ($29,008) is less than half the national median household income ($60,293).
As of the last official census count, in 2010, Cleveland’s population was 396,815. And as of Tuesday, Cleveland had reached only a 50 percent response rate for the 2020 census, with less than two weeks left. Ohio’s total response rate is now up to 69.9 percent.
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This article appears in Sep 9-22, 2020.
