Residential Foreclosures in the City of Buffalo, 1990-2000 - Federal ...

Chart 2
Unemployment Rate: Buffalo-Niagara Metropolitan Statistical Area
and the Nation: 1990-2002
Percent
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1990
91
92
93
Source: U.S. Department of Labor.
94
95
96
97
98
99
Buffalo
United States
00
City Economic Conditions
Although the city of Buffalo did not suffer from a severe shock to the regional economy
in the 1990s, it continued to house a disproportionate share of the metro area’s lowincome
and unemployed residents. Moreover, the city’s economic condition relative to
the region’s worsened: in 1989, the city’s median household income equaled 65.8 percent
of income in the metro area; by 1999, that ratio had declined to 63.7 percent. The city’s
low average income is due in part to chronically high unemployment. Buffalo’s
unemployment rate was 13 percent in 2000, about twice the metro rate and a percentage
point higher than it was in 1990. 5
In summary, Buffalo’s increase in foreclosures took place in an environment of
slow growth but absent a significant economic stimulus. Still, whether the increase was
attributable to local or national forces, it is not surprising that the effect would be more
apparent in a city like Buffalo. Evidence suggests that the foreclosure process itself
disproportionately affects low- and moderate-income homeowners because they lack the
resources to avert or forestall foreclosure. 6 Such homeowners clearly represent a
considerable portion of the Buffalo housing market.
5 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1990, 2000.
6 Lauria, 1998.
15
01
02
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0