Childhood poverty is up sharply, Wilkes Journal-Patriot (08.29.2011)
Statistics showing how child poverty increased across the nation, North Carolina and in Wilkes County during the recession are in a new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
The report showed that 30 percent of the children in Wilkes County in 2009 lived in poverty, up from 22.4 percent in 2005 and 21.6 percent in 2007. Actual numbers of children living in poverty in Wilkes were 3,375 in 2005, 3,157 in 2007 and 4,401 in 2009.
The report, released this month, defines “children living in poverty” as those in families with annual household incomes at or below the federal poverty level.
Statewide, 22.5 percent of North Carolina children lived in poverty in 2009.
More recent figures weren’t available for the report, but people involved in programs that assist children living in poverty in Wilkes say child poverty hasn’t decreased in Wilkes since 2009 because the local employment and other economic situations at best have shown little improvement.
More recent numbers are available for the Wilkes County School System’s free and reduced price meals program.
At the end of the 2010-11 school year, 60.79 percent of the 10,284 students in the Wilkes schools received either free or reduced price school meals, said Vicki Hugger, the school system’s director of nutrition.
Mrs. Hugger said 60.79 percent was based on 5,499 receiving free meals and 753 receiving reduced price meals by the end of the 2010-11 school year.
She said 58.69 percent of the school system’s students received free or reduced price meals less than a year earlier in October 2010, but this included 5,314 with free meals and 856 with reduced price meals. Enrollment was about the same at those two different times.
According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation report, the percent of Wilkes students in the free or reduced meal program in earlier years included 54 percent in 2005-06, 56.6 percent in 2006-07, 56.9 percent in 2007-08, 58.9 percent in 2008-09 and 62.3 percent in 2009-10.
The school system is required to give every child the opportunity to apply for free or reduced meals, so there likely are some children who are eligible but applications weren’t submitted for them.
Mrs. Hugger said school officials are about halfway through processing applications for free or reduced lunch and already have 4,844 students eligible for free lunch and 436 eligible for reduced lunch. She said that was a frightening indicator the numbers could go much higher this school year.
Children from households whose income is at or below federal poverty level guidelines are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. Children who are members of households that are eligible to receive Food Stamp or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families are automatically eligible for free meals.
Statewide, an estimated 500,000 children in North Carolina lived in families earning less than the federal poverty level in 2009.
And some of those children are among the 1 in 10 statewide whose families struggle to survive in extreme poverty, meaning they live on less than half the federal poverty wage level.