Michigan's economic picture has brightened in recent years, as the unemployment rate dropped and fewer residents found themselves living under the poverty line.

But census data released today show residents throughout the state are still struggling. Poverty rate estimates in about half of Michigan's communities increased between two five-year periods - 2008-12 and 2012-16 - the new data shows.

That includes places like Flint, Jackson, Lansing, Detroit, Muskegon, Bay City and Ann Arbor, each of which saw a slight uptick in the poverty rate. Meanwhile, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Saginaw saw slight decreases.

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In most instances, the places that saw the biggest change - either sharp decreases or increases - were small towns, where a slight adjustment in the number of people living in poverty resulted in big swings in the poverty rate.

For instance, in Calumet, a village in the Keweenaw Peninsula, the estimated number of people living in poverty increased by 71 to a total of 335. That resulted in the poverty rate increasing by 13.2 percentage points to a total of 50.3 percent.

In such communities, the economic well-being of residents can change because of slight shift in the job market, said Peter Ruark, a policy analyst at the nonpartisan Michigan League for Public Policy.

"Poverty could very easily depend on one factory closing or one major employer closing and then those jobs not being replaced and people having to work at much lower paying jobs," he said.

The data released today is part of the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, and represents an average over a five-year period. Unlike other releases from the government agency, today's data provides a variety of statistics on communities of all sizes across Michigan. Other data releases are more limited in scope, and include figures for the largest counties and cities.

In communities with at least 10,000 residents, the the Village of Beverly Hills in Oakland County had the lowest poverty rate in the state - 2 percent.

Forest Hills, an unincorporated community in suburban Grand Rapids with more than 27,000 residents, also had one of the lowest poverty rates in the state - 2.2 percent.

On the other end of the spectrum, Baldwin, a small village in Lake County with just over 1,000 residents, had a poverty rate of 54.6 percent, one of the highest levels in the state. It was followed by the city of Hamtramck, in Wayne County, which had a poverty rate of 49.7 percent.

Detroit, Michigan's largest city, had a poverty rate of 39.4 percent.

Ruark said it's not surprising that about half the communities in the state saw reductions in the poverty rate, while the rest saw improvements.

"Michigan is very slowly making a comeback," he said. "We kind of expect there are places that are doing much better, but perhaps there are other places where the jobs aren't coming back."

According to the new statistics, Michigan's poverty rate for the five-year period between 2012-16 was 16.3 percent. That's unchanged from the five-year period between 2008-12.

But it's down from the recent peak of 16.9 percent, which the state hit during the five-year period of 2010-14.