Fri, Feb. 23, 2007
WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high and millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line.
A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of the 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 -- half the federal poverty line -- was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.
The analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent between 2000 and 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. The review also suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn't confined to urban counties.
The plight of the severely poor is distressing amid an unusual economic expansion. Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries. That helps explain why the median household income for working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.
These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the nation's 37 million poor people into deep poverty -- the highest rate since at least 1975.
The share of poor Americans in deep poverty has climbed slowly but steadily over the past three decades. But since 2000, the number of severely poor has grown "more than any other segment of the population," according to a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
"That was the exact opposite of what we anticipated when we began," said Dr. Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University, who co-authored the study. "We're not seeing as much moderate poverty as a proportion of the population. What we're seeing is a dramatic growth of severe poverty."
The growth, which leveled off in 2005, in part reflects how hard it is for low-skilled workers to earn their way out of poverty in an unstable job market that favors skilled and educated workers. It also suggests that social programs aren't as effective as they once were at catching those who fall into economic despair.
Among the hard hit is John Treece, 60, who is plagued by arthritis, back problems and myriad ailments from years of manual labor. Treece, who lives near the Capitol in Washington, has been unable to work full time for 15 years and has tried unsuccessfully to get benefits from the Social Security Administration.
Treece lives hand-to-mouth in a $450-a-month room in a nondescript boarding house in a high-crime neighborhood. Thanks to food stamps, the food pantry and help from relatives, Treece said he never goes hungry. But toothpaste, soap, toilet paper and other items that require cash are tougher to come by.
Despite his circumstances, he says, "I just thank the Lord for this day and ask that tomorrow be just as blessed."
Like Treece, many who did physical labor during their peak earning years have watched their job prospects dim as their bodies gave out.
All told, nearly two out of three people (10.3 million) in severe poverty are white, but blacks (4.3 million) and Hispanics of any race (3.7 million) have a higher rate of deep poverty.
Severe poverty is most pronounced near the Mexican border and in some areas of the South, where 6.5 million severely poor residents are struggling to find work as manufacturing jobs in the textile, apparel and furniture-making industries disappear. The Midwestern Rust Belt and areas of the Northeast also have been hard hit as economic restructuring and foreign competition have forced numerous plant closings.
At the same time, low-skilled immigrants with impoverished family members are increasingly drawn to the South and Midwest to work in meatpacking, food processing and agriculture.
More families seek help here, advocate says
In Mecklenburg County it appears that poverty is mirroring the national trend, the McClatchy Newspapers analysis showed, with the poorest losing even more ground.
The surveys showed an estimated 35,000 people in the county were in deep poverty in 2005. The numbers are hard to determine exactly, however, because they are based on survey samples.
But in 17 years of working with the poor, Deronda Metz has seen the face of the extreme poverty change from adults seeking help to entire families needing emergency shelter.
As director of social services for the Salvation Army of Greater Charlotte, she has also seen how poverty takes root in a family and holds on.
When she first started work, most clients she saw were adult women. Now they are entire families with children in tow. She has even seen some children come back through the doors as adults, seeking help from the shelter where they stayed as kids.
"How do we break that cycle?" she asked.
Metz was among about 400 community leaders who gathered Thursday at the Charlotte Convention Center to discuss affordable housing. But she said the fix needs to go beyond housing.
She advocates for more vocational education to help train the poorest in specific jobs so that they can pay for that affordable housing, plus food and day care. It's going to cost money, she said. But she added, "We pay now or we pay later."