Approximately 64% of the region’s households are estimated to be families (defined as two or more people related by blood, marriage, or adoption and residing together) (ACS, 2020). While the two-county region continues to have more family than nonfamily households, we are seeing growth in nonfamily and single-person households. Between 2000 and 2020, 82% of new households created were nonfamily and 60% were single-person households. More than 2,100 new single-person households were created over the 20-year period. New family and nonfamily households account for net population growth in addition to the dynamic shifting of the same population between family and nonfamily living arrangements

A nonfamily household in the two-county region is nearly three times as likely to have an income below the poverty line as a family household. Given that most of the region’s household growth is in nonfamily households, the income and poverty disparity between family and nonfamily households is a worrying trend.