It’s easy to overlook with the ratio of BMWs to Hondas parked along Elm Street on any given day, but the poverty rate in New Canaan is not zero. Sure, it’s not like up in Hartford where fully a third of the city’s residents are living below the poverty line. But it’s not zero.

Officially – and this is officially according to 10-year-old census stats – the poverty rate here is 2.5 percent, 74 families, 485 people. Given the state of the economy, it’s probably higher by now. And given the cost of living here, chances are that number almost completely masks the poverty that exists in this town.

The poverty guidelines are a federal thing. The “poverty line” is the same in New Canaan as it is in Hartford – a household income below $22,050 for a family of four in 2009. But in New Canaan, $22,050 is just 12 percent of the median household income ($181,161). In Hartford where the median income is just $30,806, an income of $22,050 is not all that far from what your neighbors are bringing in.

The Living Wage Calculator estimates that the living wage for a family of four in Fairfield County (and that includes Bridgeport) is $32.32 an hour, or $67,227 a year before taxes. Guess what? At least 18 percent of households in New Canaan are living off an income that doesn’t meet that threshold.

Now some of those households may be single people who don’t need as much, and some may be retirees living off personal assets, but the point is that it’s clearly way more than 2.5 percent of New Canaan residents who are struggling to make ends meet.

In Hartford, the community is way more set up to accommodate a family with a relatively low income. There are dollar stores and discount grocery outlets, and there is an understanding that pretty much everybody is in the same boat.

Here, you’ve got to drive out of town to find a bargain, which means more gas money and more time behind the wheel. There are 178 subsidized housing units for seniors and low-income families, but if you live there your kid’s classmate might be forbidden from coming over to play.

There’s less violence in New Canaan than Hartford, and the public school system is better, but there must be some peculiar difficulties to being poor in a rich town.