NC poverty increase sparks worries about future, Charlotte Observer (09.29.2011)
RALEIGH, N.C. In the past, people struggling financially came to the Crisis Ministry in Cary searching for help with their electrical bills. Now, their problems are bigger and they’re more likely to need help keeping a roof over their heads.
“More people have gone through their savings. They’re not just looking at the light bill anymore. They’re looking at the whole household because their hours have been cut or their job went away,” said Jill Wissing, manager of the Crisis Ministry of Dorcas Ministry in Cary, which helps people in a temporary financial crisis.
The ministry helps with electric bills and meeting rent or mortgage payments and also provides food to people who don’t receive other assistance, such as food stamps. It will help a household once every 12 months and recently instituted a lifetime limit of helping the same household three times because its own budget has been cut in half.
Wissing’s experience exemplifies the growing poverty rate in North Carolina. Census data released this week shows that one in four North Carolina children were living in poverty last year. That’s up from just more than 19 percent in 2007.
The census figures show that roughly 1.6 million state residents were living in poverty. The federal poverty level is an income of around $22,000 for a family of four. More than 728,000 North Carolinians are living in deep poverty, meaning they earn half that threshold.
The immediate problems of so many people living in poverty are likely to be compounded by complications months and years in the future, said Barb Bradley, president of Action for Children North Carolina, a statewide advocacy group.
“The long-term consequences are huge,” Bradley said, adding that the children likeliest to be living below the poverty line are those ages 1 to 5.
“If those children aren’t going to school prepared, we’re going to see a greater lagging in academic performance” that can affect everything from the likelihood of attending college to future earning potential, she said.
After the previous three recessions, the poverty rate didn’t drop until one year after the annual unemployment rate began to fall. That means it’s unlikely the poverty rate will improve this year because unemployment is hanging stubbornly in double digits in North Carolina, the Budget and Tax Center said in an analysis.
And that unemployment rate is the largest driver of the increase in North Carolinians falling into poverty, said Alexandra Forter Sirota, the center’s director. Between July 2007 and July 2011, the jobless rate more than doubled, going from 5.1 percent to 10.4 percent.
“The immediate thing is to address the fact that we’ve had this significant job loss,” she said. “Until we get a recovery that really changes that for North Carolina, we’re not likely to see much of an improvement in these numbers.”
Employment is the only way to improve the poverty number, Bradley said. But for many parents that’s not possible without someone to watch their children. That’s why her group is urging policymakers to consider increasing subsidies for child care.
“If we want people to be able to work, we’ve got to have children in safe and quality care,” she said.
Like Bradley, Sirota said some of the most disturbing figures detail the number of children living below the federal poverty level. About 8.6 percent of the state’s children in 2010 were living in deep or extreme poverty.
“Having large numbers of people in North Carolina experiencing this kind of poverty is obviously going to have long-lasting impacts, even 20 years from now,” Sirota said.
Wissing is seeing the immediate effects. In 2010, the agency assisted just short of 5,000 people, or a little more than 1,800 households. Through August 2011, it had helped more than 2,800 people in 1,100 households.
The agency also helps with food for people who don’t receive other help such as food stamps. In 2010, a little more than 2,600 people in almost 1,000 households received help. Through August of this year, it had assisted about 1,800 people in 662 households.
The numbers are staying stable even though the agency instituted its lifetime limit on help this year, meaning the agency is turning away people who need help more often.
“One of the hardest things is to say no,” Wissing said. “But when we say no, it’s so we can say yes to someone else. We’re going to spend that money. We try to keep our mission in mind – it’s temporary financial assistance.”