Category: Poverty and Policy Matters

Poverty extends its reach across NC

September 26, 2011 at 2:23 pmCategory:Poverty and Policy Matters

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A brief released last week by the NC Budget and Tax Center shows that the prolonged weak recovery is crippling the economy and creating economic distress for working families in NC. The state poverty rate ($22,314 for a family of four) climbed to 17.5 percent in 2010, a 22 percent increase since 2007 when the Great Recession began.

But there was more to the data released last week than state level numbers. The US Census Bureau also provided poverty levels and household income for areas with at least 65,000 people. There are 39 counties in NC that fit this criterion.** County-level poverty rates in NC ranged from 7.8 percent in Union County to 31.1 percent in Robeson County. 1 county had a poverty rate less than 10 percent, 16 counties had rates ranging from 10 percent to 17.5 percent (the state rate), and 22 counties had rates above 17.5 percent. Read More…

Poverty Rate Edges Up During the Official Recovery of the Great Recession

September 23, 2011 at 2:59 pmCategory:Poverty and Policy Matters

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The 2010 poverty data that was released by the Census Bureau yesterday demonstrate that the significant increases in poverty felt during the Great Recession were only the tip of the iceberg. The North Carolina Budget and Tax Center (BTC) released a brief today showing that the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is eroding.

The poverty rate in North Carolina was 17.5% in 2010, up 22% since 2007 and 2.2 percentage points higher than the U.S. poverty rate in 2010. 1.6 million North Carolinians have incomes below the poverty line, which corresponds to an income of $22,314 for a family of four. The share of North Carolinians living in deep poverty—an income of $11,157 for a family of four—rose 1.8 percentage points from 2007 to 2010. Last month, the BTC estimated that a family of four actually needs an annual income of $48,814 to make ends meet in the state. Read More…

Poverty Rate Climbs, Failure to Act Not an Option

September 22, 2011 at 11:40 amCategory:Poverty and Policy Matters

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New data from the U.S. Census Bureau released today shows that a middle-class life is increasingly out of reach for many North Carolinians. North Carolina’s poverty rate bumped up to 17.5 percent in 2010, a 22 percent increase since 2007 when the Great Recession started. The 368,614 North Carolinians newly pushed into poverty over this period are roughly equivalent to the population in all 24 of the state’s smallest counties.

This latest growth in poverty follows a three-decade long trend of a failure of productivity gains to translate into compensation gains for workers. Not surprisingly, wages, wage inequality and the broader economy affect people’s experiences of economic hardship.

The Great Recession has only served to deepen and spread the experience of hardship because of the interrelated phenomena of the lack of jobs and the collapse in revenue to support public investment. In North Carolina alone, the jobs deficit has reached nearly half a million jobs, meaning that many families are without the employment necessary to get by and stay out of poverty. Without work, these families have cut back on spending, which in combination with tight credit markets has impacted businesses. Revenue has suffered as a result, and state policymakers have chosen to cut public investments at a critical time in the economic recovery.

State and federal government play an essential role in increasing jobs and decreasing poverty. Read More…