The U.S Census Bureau says nationwide, 46.2 million Americans live in poverty, a rate of 15-percent.
David Johnson, Chief of the bureau’s Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division, says that shows post-recession poverty leveling off.
"After three consecutive years of increases, neither the poverty rate, nor the people living in poverty, were statistically different from the 2010 estimates," he said during a conference call today.
You might call that good news, in that while poverty is still an issue, it hasn't gotten worse since the last data was gathered. That's the takeaway for Rob Fischer, co-director for the Center on Urban Poverty & Community Development at Case Western University. However, Fischer says Ohio is certainly feeling the effects of "recessionary times”. He says the state numbers have fluctuated just a few percentage points above or below the national rate in each of the last few years – with the latest settling 15.1 percent.
“In 2011 we're just a tenth of a percent above the U.S. rate."
But that’s a stark contrast to 2001, when the poverty rate for the state was 10.5 percent. Fischer says the last decade has seen strong economic upheaval in both the U.S. and the Buckeye State, especially when the recession peaked in 2007.
"And with the current, lagging effects of the economic crisis, we continue to really be at the highest levels in nearly 30 years, on poverty, in Ohio."
The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey containing more specific figures on cities and counties will come out next week. Fischer says he'll be watching to see if there's anything new for the cities of Cleveland and Cincinnati, which historically have been in the Top 10 poorest cities in America. But he adds that the Center on Urban Poverty & Community Development has seen a new trend emerging: poverty migrating out of city centers and into inner-ring suburbs.
"Families that live outside city centers have fallen prey to foreclosure and have been drawn into poverty. But we also see the continuing reality of migration of families out of city centers to better environments, better schools…those sorts of attractions that people see a better life to be had."
Going by race, the national poverty rate is 27.6 percent for African-Americans. That's arguably better than it was half a century ago, when it was twice that. But it's still higher than other groups, something that Clevelanders like Sandra Ellington would like to see addressed in Washington. Ellington was recently featured on "The Poverty Tour 2.0", a public affairs program that came through Cleveland this week. A custodian with the group, "Janitors for Justice", Ellington points out that options for the working class aren't what they used to be in Ohio.
"The manufacturing jobs are gone. So…Wendy's, McDonald's…those jobs are available," says Ellington. "And the faces look like me. People trying to raise their children, and have a home. Congress needs to know that has to change. We can't continue to work at these wages."
Another Cleveland-area resident, Diane Merriweather, says poverty doesn't just mean scraping by to pay the bills and buy groceries. She recalls when she and her daughter were robbed at gunpoint after leaving a public library.
"Why does nobody talk about the tentacles that poverty plays when it comes to crime? It's educated people, degreed people, in my neighborhood that are scared to go out at a certain time, because of the crime! A lot of young people feel that they have no hope. And they're going to eat whether they wait for me to come home at the 40-hour week, and rob me."
With a slowly rebounding economy and a slowly declining unemployment rate, it’s hoped that the poverty rate will begin to recede as well. Any further upturn can't come soon enough for those in need of a paycheck and a meal on the table.