Numbers suggest more poor children

Although poverty levels dropped on the whole, estimates indicate a higher percentage for those younger than 18.

By ALICIA CALDWELL

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 31, 2001

Poverty estimates released today by the U.S. Census bureau back up what Jim Mills has been seeing for the past few years: More Florida children come from low-wage families, and they're having a tough time getting by.

Mills, executive director of the Pinellas Juvenile Welfare Board, sees it in the number of kids who hang around in parks after school because they have nowhere to go. And he sees poverty in what the school system calls "mobility rates."

"People are living with one set of friends for a while, then they move on," Mills said. "It really caught a lot of us off guard when we figured out what was going on."

Although Florida's overall population continued to emerge from poverty, its most vulnerable members, Floridians younger than 18, did not. In fact, what had been a four-year decline in the percentage of poor children came to a near halt, according to 1998 estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Numbers show that 21.9 percent of Florida children lived in poverty in 1998. The national average was 18.9 percent.

The statistics are important because they are used in administering federal programs. The Census Bureau estimates that hundreds of state and local programs depend on income and poverty estimates for distributing funds and managing programs.

However, the estimates shouldn't be confused with Census 2000 results. This sort of census detail is not scheduled for release until 2002.

The estimates released today come from a March 1999 survey that asked about 1998 income. Also taken into consideration were aggregate numbers from federal income tax returns, and records from Supplemental Security Income recipients.

The poverty level in 1998 was defined as an income of $16,660 for a family of four.

Regionally, the South had some of the steepest declines in poverty but still had the highest rates in the country. For example, Mississippi and Louisiana had two of the largest percentages of residents living in poverty in 1998. But Mississippi's poverty rate declined about 7 percentage points, to 17.6 percent, from 1989 to 1998, while Louisiana's dropped 4 points to 18.2 percent in the same period.

States with the largest increases: New York, up 3 points to 15.4 percent, and California, up 2 points to 14.9 percent.

The statistics also are somewhat deceiving, said Jane Boykin, president of the non-profit Mississippi Forum on Children and Families. Though aided by the good economy of the 1990s, many families moved from being in poverty to simply being poor, Boykin said.

In Florida, which has a high proportion of low-paying service jobs, politics and the state's economic structure have combined to put the double whammy on families.

"I believe that one of the great tragedies over the past several years is that we have reduced welfare rolls, but we have not reduced poverty for children," said Jack Levine, president of the Center for Florida's Children.

Levine said the numbers confirm that Florida children, especially those in single-family households or with parents younger than 30, are particularly at risk.

"Work no longer brings you out of poverty," Levine said. "It's a shame."

-- Information from Times wires was used in this report.

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