Poverty
Have you ever heard anyone say, “There’s no poverty here”? Believe it or not, I have. Isn’t that sad? We need to better educate people about poverty, how it affects our community, and what we can do to elevative it. The Horizons program is a great way to do this. And the Center for Rural Policy and Development website has some great information. I found an intersting map there:
March 26th, 2008 at 10:44 am
I couldn’t agree more! Well said. When you look at 2007 Federal Poverty Guidelines (FPG) a family of 4 with an annual income of $20,650 is considered living at the poverty level. The Jobs Now Coalition recently released its report The Cost of Living in Minnnesota. In MN DEED Region 4, to meet basic needs a family of 4 needs $42,162 annual income. That is a huge gap of $21,512!
In NYM (56567 zipcode), according to the 2000 census, there were 1,211 households. 439 households reported income less than $25,000 that’s a whopping 36%. Meaning according to FPG these households would qualify for food support, free school lunch, medical assistance, energy assistance.
When you look at what it takes to support a family, we should really be looking at 200% current FPG- a family of four with income at or below $41,300. Because that is really about what it costs to support a family in safe housing, healthy food, and quality medical care.
Looking at the 200% of FPG for NYM would mean that 734 households or 60% would fall below and qualify for some social service programs from reduced lunch to energy assistance.
To earn that type of income you’d need earn $19.85 per hour (not too many of those in Mills…or Otter Tail County for that matter). So two adults working full time would need to earn at least $9.92 an hour. 34% of jobs in Otter Tail county pay less than $9.80 an hour…