Wednesday, September 27, 2000
Ohio sees slight uptick in poverty
State runs counter to U.S. trend, Census shows
By Ken Alltucker
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ohio's poverty rate increased slightly last year, even as the nation's rate dwindled to the lowest level since 1979 as American families collected record incomes, the U.S. Census says.
The increased poverty rate came even though Ohio's family wages increased at the same rate as families nationwide.
The greater poverty rates of Ohio and a dozen other states were “statistically insignificant” because so few people were polled, said John Iceland, a Census Bureau statistician who helped compile Tuesday's report.
“They are not completely reliable. We don't talk to every single person,” Mr. Iceland said.
Nevertheless, Mr. Iceland was confident that nationwide statistics accurately portray a strong economy creating better household wages and whittling away poverty.
The survey of 50,000 households nationwide revealed that the U.S. poverty rate dropped from 12.7 percent in 1998 to 11.8 percent in 1999. In Ohio, poverty increased from 11.1 percent to 11.6 percent during the same period. A family of four earning $17,029 or less in a year is considered poor.
The nation's 1999 median household income of $40,816 marked a 2.7 percent increase over the year before. Ohio's 1999 median household income also increased 2.7 percent, to $39,701.
Kentucky trimmed its poverty rate by 1.9 points to 12.8 percent, and Indiana's poverty rate of 8 percent trailed only Maryland and Utah as the nation's lowest.
Poverty and income data for Greater Cincinnati as a region weren't available.
Low unemployment and higher wages are two factors helping fight poverty, said George Vredeveld, director of the Center for Economic Education at the University of Cincinnati. “The economy really has reached down in the last two to three years, and it has put a lot of people to work who haven't had jobs before,” he said.
But Liz Carter, executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul's Cincinnati District Council, said she hasn't noticed less poverty.
The nonprofit organization's West End office has seen a 35 percent increase in emergency clothing and food requests since April, Ms. Carter said.
Requests often come from jobless and single mothers struggling with minimum-wage jobs and several children to support. They represent the “hidden poverty” the statistics don't mention, she said.
“Our services have been more in demand,” she said.
Facts from the census report:
• Poverty fell among people 65 and over, ages 24 to 44 and among children, although children under 6 remained particularly vulnerable to being poor. Those living in families headed by a single woman had a poverty rate of 50 percent — more than five times the rate for children under 6 in married-couple families.
• The sharpest drop in poverty was in central cities, where three of 10 Americans live — and where four in 10 poor people live.
• Women continue to lag in income. The median earnings of men who worked full-time rose by 1 percent, while the earnings of comparable women remained the same. In 1999 earnings, women earned 72 cents for every dollar earned by men. That was lower than the female-to-male earnings ratio of 73 cents in 1998 and the record high of 74 cents in 1996.
• Per-capita income hit a record, increasing 3 percent to $21,181. This category rose for all racial groups except Hispanics.
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