On September 24, 2002, the US Bureau of the Census released its annual report on poverty in the United States, covering the year 2001. A week later, the Bureau’s annual study on health insurance coverage was released. A few days after that, the Department of Agriculture announced that the food stamp rolls were continuing to grow. In each case, the news was bad with regard to the condition of people living in or near poverty in this country.

For the first time since 1993, national poverty, as measured by the Census Bureau, is on the increase, rising by 1.3 million people to 11.7% of the population. The only group for which income actually rose in 2001 is the wealthiest 5% of those living in the US. Lack of health care coverage is also increasing, with 41.2 million (14.6% of the population) having no insurance, up 1.4 million people from 2000. Another indication of increased domestic poverty came when the Department of Agriculture released figures for July 2002 showing that in that month there were 23,935 people on the food stamp rolls than there had been just one month before, raising the total enrollment to 19.4 million people. This is the latest in a series of increases totaling 1.4 million people in the last year.

The poverty line is established annually through a 40-year-old formula that essentially calculates the cost of a basic "no frills" diet for low-income people, adjusts it by family size, and triples it. This formula does not give consideration to housing, child care, transportation and health care costs, which are now a more significant part of most poor families’ budgets than food. The poverty line for a family of four people in 2002 is $18,100.

The Census poverty report also showed that median family income (the point at which half of all families receive more and half receive less) fell among all ethnic groups for the first time since 1991, to an annual income of $42,400, which is $900 below the 2000 median but still more than double the poverty line. The decrease in the median was worst in the West and Midwest. The only area where it did not apply was the Northeast.

These trends are related to a number of conditions, all of which are expected to deteriorate further in 2002 and 2003. Unemployment rates had begun to increase in 2001, to a monthly average in that year of 4.8%. The average rate thus far in 2002 has escalated to 5.9% and most observers expect no improvement until the last half of 2003, at the earliest.

Another factor is that, because of the recession, most states are struggling with serious deficits and have begun to cut social service programs to recoup funds required to balance their budgets. Often this is done by toughening eligibility standards for receiving various types of assistance, withdrawing benefits for those who are poor but not on welfare, or for those whose need is assumed to be less.

The unemployment stemming from the current recession has been of the long-term variety, as hundreds of thousands of jobs have simply disappeared from the economy. Unemployment Compensation pays only a fraction of a worker’s normal earnings and expires in six to nine months, depending on location. In 2002, two million workers are expected to run out of this vital but minimal aid before they find new jobs.

The rise in the number of people without health insurance is also related to increased unemployment because most people obtain insurance through their jobs and lose it when the job ends. Even when they have the chance to stay in a former employer’s plan while seeking new work, the full cost falls on the worker and is often prohibitive.

Finally, mothers who were receiving TANF have begun to reach their time limits for participation in the program and are losing their benefits. Most of those who leave TANF voluntarily when they get jobs find that they are still poor because the jobs available to them pay badly and provide few, if any benefits. Often families lose government-provided health care, housing aid, and child care subsidies when they leave TANF, because caseworkers do not inform them that they are still eligible but have to reapply in order to continue to receive assistance. States trying to cut costs do not usually do much outreach to bring eligible participants into expensive programs, even when they are in need. If all poor families and individuals received all of the federal benefits for which they are eligible, an additional 3.8 million people would be lifted out of poverty, according the Urban Institute in Washington.

Not surprisingly, low-income families who cannot earn enough to survive without help are turning to churches and charities for assistance. In 2001, the US Conference of Mayors surveyed 27 cities nationwide and reported that requests for food assistance had risen by 23%, while those for emergency shelter were up, on average, by 13%. This continues a trend that has prevailed for the past several years and shows no sign of improving.

During the same period that charities have been reporting steadily increasing need for all kinds of assistance, but especially for food, the Census Bureau has annually reported decreased poverty. This is because the official rate of poverty is based almost solely on food prices, an area where inflation has been low for several years. The reality of poverty, however, is based on the cost of housing, child care, transportation, and medical care, in addition to food; and inflation in all of those areas has been much higher. Thus, the disconnect between the measure of poverty and its reality increases with each year.

This makes it all the more significant that - even by the flawed official measurement - the poverty rate increased in 2001 from 11.3% to 11.7% of the population. The Bush Administration responded to the new report by issuing a press release from the Department of Health and Human Services calling for passage of the President’s TANF reauthorization proposal. This measure would increase the work requirement for welfare recipients by one-third, reduce education and training possibilities for them, and provide no additional child care or other forms of assistance.

The Administration press release emphasized the fact that poverty has decreased dramatically for both adults and children since TANF was enacted in 1996, a trend that actually began in 1994 with the start of the economic boom of the late 1990s. Near the end of the release, a single sentence acknowledged that "from 2000 to 2001 there was a small increase in the overall poverty rate," but no comparative figures or explanation of the change were provided. The actual poverty rate was omitted from the release, although many other statistics were included to illustrate the improvement since 1996.

Other than a few press commentaries on the dramatic increase in poverty revealed by the Census Bureau, the health and poverty reports sank like stones in a pond as Congress and the Administration turned their attention towards international concerns. Religious community advocates, however, need to keep these discouraging figures in mind as they press Congress to reform the welfare system and provide more resources for children and families in need. When the most affluent five percent of the population continues to flourish while everyone else in the nation loses ground, it is clear that national priorities are not in order.

- By Mary Anderson Cooper, October 3, 2002