Words: 1772
Poverty is a standard of living below the minimum needed for the maintenance of adequate diet, health, and shelter. Although I was unable to find In searching the sites that were provided to me updated statistics For Milwaukee County, I found up to 2003. Starting first with the number of people in Milwaukee living in poverty jumped more than 14% in 2002 according to a Census Bureau report. The city had nearly 125,000 people living under the federal poverty income level in 2003, up nearly 16,000 from a year earlier, according to a report released.
That translated Into roughly 22% of the city students and moved Milwaukee to a No. 12 ranking among large U. S. Cities, up from 17th place in 2001. The state poverty rate for Wisconsin, however, changed little between 2001 and 2002, when It stood at 9. 7% and ranked 41st among the states. Nationally, million fell below the poverty level last year 1. 4 million more than in 2001 and accounted for 12. 4% of the total U. S. Population, the Census Bureau reported.
Reasons given for the increase included the impact of the lingering national recession and stringent rules of the states landmark Wisconsin Works welfare reform program. Community Advocates, a Milwaukee agency that helps people facing evictions utility shut offs and other problems, attributed an increase in local poverty to a tighter job market and the W-2 program’s job emphases Ana requirement generally Limiting cans assailants to two years . ‘nose end up relaying on family and friends for shelter temporarily, and some end up homeless. The Hunger Task Force agency saw a 4. % increase in the number of low income families visiting local pantries in 2002, 49,223 families used these local pantries last year. In Milwaukee County 141,679 people participated in the Food Stamp Program in July lone according to state figures. This is example of a truer reading of local need. The Census Bureau also had some sobering figures of the poverty statistics. Median household income in Milwaukee dropped to $32,447 last year, down $2,071 , or 6%, from 2001. The city ranking on median income dropped from 49th to 53rd of 66 large U. S. Ties, according to bureau figures. “l find this (poverty) pattern quite puzzling, especially in the absence of other information that suggests that the life of the poor is deteriorating more rapidly in Milwaukee than other places in Wisconsin,” said Robert Haven, an economics professor at U-Madison Institute for research on poverty. In looking up newarticle14s I found to be most interesting that the comparison between Milwaukee and New Orleans is frightening. Milwaukee with New Orleans among the 10 American cities with the highest concentration of urban poverty. The U. S.
Census Bureau, using different figures, reported in August 2005 that Milwaukee was the seventh most impoverished city in the nation. New Orleans ranked 13th in that same report. New Orleans, Walt 3/ AT It’s roan population living In extreme-pope neighborhoods. Milwaukee ranks 9th with 27% of it’s residents living in concentrated urban poverty. African-Americans who live in concentrated urban poverty, Milwaukee 39. 3% nearly equals New Orleans’ 42. 6%. And in the tally of extreme poverty census tracts, Milwaukee 42 high-poverty tracts comes close to the 47 in New Orleans.
The study, in effect, showed that Milwaukee and other urban centers have poor neighborhoods with statistical similarity to the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, the largely black district where the floods unleashed by Strain left behind mass homelessness, anarchy and floating corpses. Strain revealed sharp lines of division by class and race where poor people were literally left behind. High poverty neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward scare away private investment and Jobs, perpetuate crime, register higher levels of mental health problems and end up with troubled school districts and high drop out rates.
The study deliberately excludes urban dwellers who fit the statistical definition of poverty but live in non-impoverished districts that presumably offer reasonable schools, an acceptable degree of public safety, Job opportunities and purposeful mentors for the young. Urban logic should focus on breaking up concentrations of poverty, it cited the HOPE VI program, created under the first Bush administration, which was conceived to tear down America’s most distressed public housing and replace it with economically Integrated housing.
The current administration has proposed the elimination of HOPE VI. Congress instead cut the funding to $1 50 million from $550 million five years ago. There is no question , however, that the issue of poverty has risen on Washington’s agenda, said James P. Connelly, a partner at Milwaukee Foley & Learner law firm and a leader in Milwaukee efforts to rebuild the economy of it’s urban core. “Strain didn’t create a new problem,” said Connelly said, “it simply unmasked a long-standing one. ” For the nation as a whole in 2006, the numbers show the first substantial decline from 12. 6% to 12. 3%.
The rate for both all blacks and black children ( those under declined as well, but are higher for other groups. The median household income increased for the nation by 0. 7% to $48,201 and for blacks it increased by 0. 3% to $31,969, but both figures are below the inflation-adjusted figures in 2000. The median income of Blacks remains at 61% of that of non-Hispanic whites and the lowest of any group. Although the overall poverty rate declined to 12. 3%in 2006, that rate is still higher than in 2000 when it was 11. 3%. The poverty rate declined for all racial and ethnic groups in 2006, but Latino had the biggest drop (-1. %), followed by Asians (-0. 8%) and then blacks (-0. 6%). Blacks continue to have the highest poverty rate at 24. 3%. Blacks also have the highest rate of people living in severe poverty (less than half the current poverty threshold): 10. 9% of Blacks were in severe poverty, compared with 7. 7% of Latino, . 1% of Asians and 3. 5% of non-Hispanic Whites. The poverty rate for children (under B) also reappear 2006, Trot Hispanic / to 1/. 4%. At more than 3 tales ten non- White rate of 10%, blacks continue to have the highest percentage of children in of any group (33. %). This figure is a 1. 1 percentage point improvement from last year, the second biggest improvement of any group after Latino. The elderly (65 years and older) continue to have the lowest overall poverty rate at 9. 4%, yet this rate is also higher for Blacks (22. 7%) than for any other group. Median household income increased for roofs except non-Hispanic Whites in 2006, but for all groups the inflation-adjusted median income was still less than it was in 2000. For blacks this year’s median household income was 8% lower than 2000.
In 2006, Asians had the biggest annual increase in median income (+1. 8%), followed by Latino (+1 . 7%), Blacks (+0. 3%) and then non- Hispanic Whites (-0. 05%). When you look specifically at different income groups, Blacks continue to have far higher percentages of people at the lowest incomes (less than $1 5,000 a year) than non-Hispanic Whites or the nation as a whole, and far fewer in pop range (more than $100,000). Updated 2007 info I found comes from The Center for American Progress produces a release from The Census Bureau with new data on poverty in 2007.
The Census Bureau announced this morning that 36. 5 million Americans were in poverty in 2006, down since last year but nearly 5 million more than were poor in 2000. The number of Americans without health care coverage was 47 million, up by 2 million since last year and up by 8. 5 million since 2000. In addressing both poverty and health coverage, our nation has gone backwards over this period. I en matron’s poverty rate In 2 was 1 percent, compared Walt 6 percent In 2005. In 2000, after seven consecutive years of falling poverty, the poverty rate was 1 1. Percent, and 31. 6 million Americans were poor. Not only have we failed to make progress since then, but the nation remains far behind where it was six years ago, with 4. 9 million more people in poverty in 2006 than 2000. This underscores that economic growth alone??especially when the benefits are not evenly shared??will not be enough to make meaningful progress in reducing poverty. There needs to be a serious national commitment and that commitment has been wholly lacking in cent years. In 2006, children remained, by far, the poorest age group.
There was no statistically significant change in the child poverty rate (17. 4 percent, compared with 17. 6 in 2005). The poverty rate remained 20 percent for children under age six. By contrast, the poverty rate for 18- to 64-year-olds was 10. 8 percent, statistically unchanged from 11. 1 percent in 2005. The elderly remain the least-poor age group, with a statistically significant decline for people age 65 and over from 10. 1 percent to 9. 4 percent. The continued high poverty rates for children impose enormous costs tooth for them and for our nation.
Recent research finds that persistent child poverty costs our economy $500 billion a year in lost productivity, higher health care costs, and crime-related costs. The racial poverty gap remains severe. In 2006, poverty rates for blacks (24. 3 percent) and Hispanics (20. 6 percent) remained far higher than the rates for whites (8. 2 percent) and Asians (10. 3 percent). The poverty rate remained statistically unchanged for the native born??11. 9 percent in 2006, and fell for the foreign-born population from 16. 5 to 15. 2 percent.
The poverty line itself falls far short of the amount of income that families need to make ends meet. In 2006, the poverty threshold for a family of four was $20,444. In many communities, the amount of income needed by a family to get by is often twice that figure or more. In 2006, 90. 5 million Americans??30. 5 percent??had incomes below twice the poverty line. Income inequality in the United States remains at historically high levels. In 2006, the share of income for the bottom 20 percent of U. S. Households remained at 3. 4 percent, while the share for the highest quintile was 50. 5 percent.
While median household income grew by less than 1 percent in 2006, the real median earnings of full-time workers fell for the third year in a row. The new Census data on health care coverage is alarming. The Census Bureau also reported that the share of Americans without health insurance grew from 15. 3 percent to 15. 8 percent while the number of uninsured Americans increased from 44. 8 million to 47. 0 million, with declines in both the percentage of people covered by employment- based coverage and the percentage covered by government programs. The number and percentage of uninsured children grew (from 10. Recent and 8 million children in 2005 to 11. 7 percent and 8. 7 million children in 2006), with children in poverty far more likely to be uninsured (19. 3 percent). The United States should not tolerate sustained high poverty and deteriorating access to health care. We can do better. Earlier this year, our Task Force on Poverty issued a report calling for a national commitment to cut poverty in half in 10 years Ana proposed a strategy to accomplish e ago allays new poverty, Income, Ana health care data underscores the need for the nation to take action and move forward.