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Highlands Today

It's official: we're poorer today

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By GARY PINNELL

Highlands Today

Published: October 23, 2009

SEBRING - Children, adults, seniors - all are being affected by the national recession, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

While the 2008 poverty numbers actually went down, the number of people living below the U.S. poverty line - $21,200 for a family of four in 2008 and $22,050 this year - is up compared with 2006.

Mary Foy, interim director of Human Services in Highlands County, doesn't know why the census poverty numbers declined last year.

"I'm baffled," she said. "That's not representative of what we're seeing right now. The only people we're seeing are the people who are hurting. We're spending grant money as fast as we can get our hands on it."

Foy's office helps pay for prescriptions, a cast for a broken leg, emergency food and shelter, and rent and utility payments.

Seniors, minorities

Seniors aren't usually as affected by recessions as others, but they are this time.

"Most seniors know what they make, and they manage to stay within that," Foy said.

Yes, but in the past few years, electricity, gasoline, milk, orange juice and other grocery staples went up. Some prices doubled, said Sandy Foster, executive director of NU-HOPE Elder Care Services.

Therefore, in this recession, the number of seniors living in poverty went up 109 percent in the past two years, and the number of seniors applying for energy assistance zoomed by 75 percent, Foster guessed without looking at the numbers. The number of seniors who applied for Medicaid assistance with in-home services like cooking and showering and dressing increased 40 percent.
Latino families are suffering disproportionately more, the census said: 10 percent of white families are in poverty, but 27 percent of Latinos are poor.

Numbers weren't available for African-American families.

Among families, more children equaled more poverty: 3 percent have one child, 23 percent have two children, 30 per have three or four children.
Food stamps
As proof to the supposition that Highlands County lost population in the past two years, the Census Bureau counted 40,988 households in 2006, 41,295 in 2007, but only 38,894 in 2008.

Even though there are fewer households, the number of houses that received food stamps increased, the Census Bureau said, from 3,185 in 2006 to 3,288 in 2008. That means 8.4 percent of households are on food stamps. The state of Florida's numbers, which are more recent, are even higher - 12 percent.

Having a job doesn't always help: 37 percent of food-stamp families have had no one working in the past 12 months, 28 percent have one worker, 34 percent have two or more workers.

The numbers released were from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, an annual nationwide assessment covering a range of topics. The figures reflect trends in family income and poverty between January 2007 and December 2008.

Tribune reporter Kevin Wiatrokski contributed to this report. Highlands Today reporter Gary Pinnell can be reached at 863-386-5828 or gpinnell@highlandstoday.com

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