Syracuse, NY – Two out of five students in schools in the city of Syracuse live in poverty, according to data recently released by the United States Census Bureau.

The Syracuse City School District ranked fourth in poverty out of 680 school districts in the state, according to the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates program, which offers annual income and poverty statistics for more of 13,000 school districts nationwide. It is estimated that approximately 40% of Syracuse students lived in poverty in 2020.

Nearby suburban school districts showed much lower poverty rates. Only about 4% of students in Fayetteville-Manlius and less than 13% of students in East Syracuse-Minoa, North Syracuse, and Jamesville-DeWitt schools lived in poverty in 2020.

Rochester’s schools’ poverty rate was slightly worse than Syracuse, with about 43% poor students; Binghamton was about the same, with 39.5%; and Buffalo fared better with just under a third of its students living in poverty.

Syracuse has ranked among the 10 poorest school districts in New York for the past 10 years, with an average of about 40% of students living in poverty throughout that time.

The US Department of Education will use these statistics to allocate federal funds to schools in the 2022-23 school year, according to the Census Bureau.

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