Orange County NC Website
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C- <br />DEPENDENCY RATES <br />8 <br />Dependency ratio is the ratio of the sum of the population <br />r r." and under 15 to the total population. In Orange County in <br />C-,611 residents were over the age of 65 ( 8. 2�� of the total <br />1-10Pulation) and 12,724 children were under the age 15 (15.7`:. of <br />the t:_twl population). Thus the dependency ratio is 19,335 t: -) <br />a)= F- 11— Oximately 1 : 4 . 2 ) and the dependency percentage .s <br />for the population. <br />By comparison, 11.1`0 of the population of North Carolina in <br />1984 was ever the age 65 and 21.3 < -, was under the age of 15; the <br />dependency ratio was approximately 1:3.0 and the dependency <br />POr,ulatlon percentage was 33.4`<. <br />The higher the dependency population percentage, the greater <br />the government burden. Therefore, the Orange County government <br />burden is lower than that of :worth Carolina. <br />INCOME AND POVERTY <br />Median family income for Orange County in 1983 was 519,305 <br />per year compared to $16,792 per year for the state. While it <br />appears that the county is above average for income for the state, <br />these figures are somewhat misleading. The affluence of southern <br />Orange County greatly distorts the data. The 1980 census showed <br />the median income in Chapel Hill to be 521,803, while in <br />Hillsborough and Carrboro, the median family incomes were $14,929 <br />and $12, 558 respectively.' <br />The 1984 unemployment rate for Orange County was 3.4 as <br />compared to the rate of the state (6.7) and the country (7.5). <br />While this figure appears impressive, there are still 15.2% of the <br />population in Orange County below the poverty level. In the 1980 <br />census, Carrboro had the highest percentage below the poverty <br />level at 27 %. The census also showed that 20% of the nonwhites <br />living in the county were below the poverty level compared to 120 <br />of the whites in the county. <br />5 <br />