The first stats from the long form of the Census have just been released. What do they tell us? Quite a bit about how Dallas is evolving as a national business center.

The long form questionnaire, administered randomly to one in six American households, delves into age, education, employment, ancestry and housing. The report also provides interesting information about income levels in Metroplex counties. The median income for a DFW household in 2000 was $47,418, surpassing the state average of $39,927. 15.6 percent of households in Dallas/Fort Worth have an income $100,000 or more. In terms of income, Collin and Rockwall were the state's wealthiest counties. Denton and Ellis also made the top 10.

According to the Greater Dallas Chamber's chief economist Dr. Lyssa Jenkens, "We are learning much more about how the metro area is beginning to specialize in terms of income, age, lifestyle, etc. We expected the Census report to show a much greater disparity of rich and poor, and the fact is that didn't happen. Although the total number of people in poverty level did increase, the poverty level or share of population living below the poverty line fell. We also learned that our international immigration was more diverse than we thought."

21 percent of DFW's foreign-born population is from Asia, 5.7 percent is from Europe, and 67.8 percent is from Latin America. By 2000, one in four Dallas residents was born in another country. According to The Dallas Morning News, by end of the 1990s, nearly 500,000 domestic and international immigrants had helped increase the region's population more than 1 million.

The Metroplex grew dramatically in the last decade from 4 million residents with the 1990 Census to 5.2 million in 2000. The average age of a Metroplex resident is 32. The DFW civilian labor force in 2000 grew to 2.7 million workers compared to 2.2 million in 1990.

According to Dr. Jenkens, DFW grew as much as it did because it generated a phenomenal number of jobs. "If we were just living on the natural increase of births over deaths, we would have lost half of our growth," she said. "In other words, half of our growth came from generating more jobs that we could fill with local population." Between 1995 and 2000, 300,000 out-of-state residents relocated to Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Rockwall and Tarrant counties.

The population boom may also have helped the Dallas region and Texas become more widely educated. 79.9 percent of DFW residents have completed high school or high levels of education. Another 28.4 percent have a bachelor's degree or higher. Collin County leads Texas with 47 percent of residents 25 or older having degrees, up from 39 percent in 1990. Denton, Rockwall, Dallas and Tarrant ranked 5th, 8th, 13th and 15th respectively of Texas' 254 counties.

The report also shows that some economists' predictions may have been worse than reality. "Commute time increased but not by nearly as much as we thought," said Dr. Jenkens. "Local residents now travel an average of 27.5 minutes to work compared to 24 minutes in 1990, and Dallas certainly didn't top the scale".

Houston commuters spend 28.8 minutes getting to work while employees in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago and New York City spent 29.4 minutes, 31.2 minutes, 31.4 minutes and 40 minutes, respectively, traveling to work. 78 percent of workers in the Dallas area drive to work alone.

The next piece of the puzzle arrives in late summer when the U.S. Census Bureau releases detailed socio-economic data. Economic development officials are anxious to see the next report because it breaks down the data into much finer geography and specifics. For example, the new information would tell us how many people with specific occupational skills are in each DFW neighborhood. That kind of information can certainly be leveraged when marketing our talented labor pool to potential clients.

For more information on the May 24 report from the U.S. Census Bureau, contact Dr. Lyssa Jenkens at ljenkens@dallaschamber.org.