Northern San Joaquin Valley residents are less-educated, have lower-paying jobs and are far more likely to live in poverty than other Americans, just-released census data show.

The statistics are disheartening but not surprising, according to community leaders.

Example: The Census 2000 Supplementary Survey shows that more than one in four Stanislaus County children live in poverty. And the younger children are, the more likely they are to be poor.

Families in the valley simply earn less than those elsewhere. Half the households in Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties earned less than $41,000 in 2000, about 14 percent less than what other California households earned.

Valley residents also are more likely to be high school dropouts. Census figures show that only 63 percent of Stanislaus residents have earned high school diplomas, far below the 81.6 percent national average.

"All this data simply reinforces the images and stereotypes people have of the valley. And it's the perception that then becomes the reality," said Ken Entin, a senior researcher with the Center for Public Policy Studies at California State University, Stanislaus.

The reality of valley life revealed by the census statistics is that the region's economic woes are interwoven with its education and social problems.

"It's sort of a web that's all tied together," Entin said.

The valley's high birth rates, large percentage of unwed mothers, lack of education and high unemployment make it tough to attract businesses, Entin said.

Charline Speck, president of the Stanislaus County Economic Development Corp., agreed.

"Education attainment is the first demographic businesses analyze when they consider whether to move into a community," she said.

"When they see education figures like ours, companies eliminate us before even giving us a chance to show them everything else our county has to offer," Speck said. "These numbers are disheartening, but we've known about them."

The census data released today were gathered at the same time as the Census 2000 nationwide population count. The supplementary survey only went to 700,000 homes, however, so its results are just estimates.

Those estimates were released only for counties or communities with 250,000 or more people. So no information was made public for Merced, Tuolumne, Calaveras and Mariposa counties.

Hundreds of statistics for Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties have been released, including some surprising details about education levels.

Perhaps most shocking is that 14.3 percent of Stanislaus County residents 25 and older have less than a ninth-grade education. That's more than double the national average for those who essentially dropped out before high school.

The percentage of Stanislaus and San Joaquin county residents who have postgraduate degrees -- a master's or doctorate -- is less than half the national average.

It's a challenge to convince valley residents to advance their education, said Martin Petersen, Stanislaus County's superintendent of schools.

"We've got to develop a college-going culture here," Petersen said. "It's going to take all of us working together to do that because we're talking about a problem that affects the entire San Joaquin Valley."

That's because it is very hard for poorly educated people to find good-paying jobs, said Carletta Evans Steele, who manages the state Employment Development Department office in Modesto.

"Technical skills are required for all kinds of employment these days," Steele said. "These (census) statistics are significant, and they definitely give us clues as to what things we need to change here."

Here's a sampling of some other census statistics released today:

• Unwed mothers -- Stanislaus County had more than double the national rate of unmarried women who gave birth within a year of Census 2000. An estimated 8.5 percent of single women, age 15 to 50, in Stanislaus County had babies, compared with 3.8 percent nationwide and 2.4 percent in San Joaquin County.
• Poor children -- In Stanislaus, 38 percent of children younger than 5 are living in poverty, compared with 15.7 percent in San Joaquin.
• Women's income -- Stanislaus County women earned about 30 percent less than women elsewhere in California. Half of Stanislaus County's working women made $14,218 or less in 2000.
• Commute times -- The average time it took to commute to work was 24.3 minutes nationwide, about two minutes longer than in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.
• Ancestry -- Besides those of Mexican descent, there are more people of German, Irish and English heritage than anything else in Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties.
• Veterans -- More than 10 percent of the nation's adult population has served in the U.S. military. That includes 31,197 veterans in Stanislaus and 42,632 in San Joaquin.
• Marriage -- There were more married women in Stanislaus, 95,837, than married men, 89,384. The opposite was found in San Joaquin, where there were 113,355 married women and 114,382 married men.
• Rooms -- Stanislaus homes have an average of 5.7 rooms, San Joaquin has 5.5 rooms, California has 5.4 and the United States has 5.8.

For complete results from the Census 2000 Supplementary Survey, go to the U.S. Census Bureau's Web site: http://factfinder.census.gov/.

Bee staff writer J.N. Sbranti can be reached at 578-2196 or jnsbranti@modbee.com.

Reprinted by permission of Modesto Bee.