One in 12 Ventura County residents lived in poverty last year, according to a recent report from the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy.

The alliance, a public policy research center for Ventura and Santa Barbara counties that was established in 2001, compiled its report on poverty rates for cities with 65,000 or more residents.

The report was based on data from the American Community Survey, a part of the U.S. Census Bureau, which releases nationwide population and housing information every year.

According to the alliance, the percentage of people living in poverty in Ventura County, 8.4 percent, stayed about the same in 2008 as it did the year before.

The federal government defines poverty as a family of four earning $22,025 a year or less.

Cameron Yee, a researcher for the Ventura-based alliance, said the report is intended to encourage local governments that are working with contractors on projects funded by federal stimulus money to require that a percentage of the work force include unemployed workers from Ventura County.

Yee said cities must work together to preserve local resources and stop battling each other over retailers they can lure into town to produce more sales tax revenue.

Cities should take a broad view of resolving issues that affect everyone, such as affordable healthcare, quality schools and sufficient public transportation, because no city operates in a vacuum; they all feel the ripple effect of problems in neighboring cities, he said.

“We’re in this together,” Yee said.

The alliance’s Sept. 29 report focused on whites and Latinos living last year in six cities in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

The lowest poverty rates last year were in Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, at 5.5 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.

Cities among the six with the highest poverty rates were Santa Maria at 14.6 percent and Santa Barbara with 14.4 percent, the report said.

In Ventura County as a whole, more than 66,000 of the 787,000 residents lived in poverty last year. The poverty rate for California was 18 .1 percent; for the nation it was 17.8 percent.

Camarillo, with a population just shy of 65,000, wasn’t included in the poverty rate report.

Maricela Morales, the alliance’s associate director, said cities not mentioned in the report can use the information to enact policies that put local people to work, particularly those who are disadvantaged.