Our Mission: The mission of our Centre County Partnership for Community Health is to support an inclusive, caring community that promotes healthy people and enhances quality of life through collaborative relationships.
Our Guiding Objective: To assess the health needs of Centre County residents and to develop outreach and partnering efforts that will bridge gaps in service and eliminate barriers to holistic health.
Centre County Income/Employment Profile
The text presented here provides a general overview income and employment in Centre County. This information may be copied/shared freely.
Centre County enjoys a strong employment rate record despite the closing of several large employers in recent years. Unemployment in June, 2006 in Centre County is 3.4%, compared to 4.7% statewide (1) . While unemployment is relatively low in Centre County, there is a growing concern among county leaders that private industry, especially technology based industry is not being attracted to the area as much as expected.
The median family income in the county is $50,557, with a per capita income of $27,041. (1)
The major employers in Centre County are (1):
| Pennsylvania State University | Educational Services |
| State College Area School District | Educational Services |
| Mount Nittany Medical Center | Health Care and Social Assistance |
| County of Centre | Public Administration |
| Wal-Mart Associates Inc. | Retail Trade |
| Glenn O Hawbaker Inc | Construction |
| Weis Markets | Retail Trade |
| Raytheon Company Associates Inc | Professional and Technical Services |
| Bellefonte Area School District | Educational Services |
| Jostens Inc | Manufacturing |
The above table shows the high dependence on Penn State University as well as local, county, state and federal government employers. Forty percent (36%) of the population lives in a rural area where employment opportunities are more limited. (1)
Although Centre County is classified by the U. S. Census Bureau as a Metropolitan Statistical Area (State College MSA), a large segment of the county's population, 37.5%, was rural in 2000. In 1999, 18.8% of Centre County's population had income below the poverty level, compared to 11.0% statewide (2).
This poverty rate is an excellent example of how Penn State students affect the statistics in Centre County. While many students have personal low incomes, they are supported by parents who may not be low income. This is one of the anomalies that occur because PSU students are included in the census counts, affecting the data for State College Borough.
For example, the Census DP-3 table on Economic Characteristics for the State
College Borough indicates that 46.9% of individuals in the borough were in
poverty in 1999, while the same figure from the DP-3 table for Philipsburg
Borough is 14.5%.(3) Care must be taken when using such statistics to factor
in the effect of the Penn State student population.
References:
1. The Centre for Workforce Information and Analysis http://www.paworkstats.state.pa.us/reports/cent_cp.pdf
2. The Center for Rural Pennsylvania
http://www.ruralpa2.org/county_profiles.cfm
3. The Census Bureau
http://censtats.census.gov/data/PA/05042027.pdf
