Making Children Poor - Dr. Rich Swier

Sarasota County, Florida released a series of demographic reports based upon the 2010 Census. Sarasota is the 14th most populous of 67 counties in Florida and is growing. The census data shows that Sarasota County, like the nation is aging and getting poorer. One of the reports states that 1 in 5 children in Sarasota County are “poor”.

It is government that defines poor, not the poor defining themselves. There are those who have more and those who have less. However, it has only been recently that those with less have been defined as the “class of poor”.

Charles Murray in his book “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010” notes, “Michael Harrington’s The Other America created a stir when it was published in 1962 partly because Harrington said America’s poor constituted a class separate from the working class – a daring proposition. At the time, the poor were not seen as a class, either by other Americans or in their own eyes. The poor were working-class people who didn’t make much money.” Harrington’s book was in part responsible for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty.”

Work (a job) and a traditional family are the two keys to reducing poverty, particularly child poverty.

Those working are less poor than those who do not, those who have been working longer (experienced workers) are less poor than those recently entering the workforce (the young). Children in single parent families are poorer than those living in traditional families.

According to the income level report, “A comparison of poverty as it relates to age reveals that between 2000 and 2010, the percentage of population under 65 years of age in poverty increased significantly for both those under the age of 18 and those between the ages of 18 and 64. The population under 18 experienced the greatest increase in poverty. The percentage of the population in poverty over the age of 65 remained constant during the decade.” Retirees living in Sarasota County depend on stock and bond market investments. The value of these investments have declined during the period of this report.

Under “Families in Poverty” the report notes, “As of 2010, Sarasota County had 8,681 families identified as living below the poverty level. Of those families, 5,450, or 63%, have at least one child below the age of 18. Additionally, 67% of children in poverty are in a single parent household, while almost half of the children in poverty are in families headed by a single female.”

The proximate cause of a child being poor is living in a single parent household according to the report.

The report notes a significant increase of those living below the poverty level since 2000. “Population in Poverty in Sarasota County There are a significant number of individuals classified as living below poverty level in Sarasota County. In 2010, 48,649 persons were living below the poverty level, almost doubling from 24,817 in 2000. However, in terms of both percentage of overall population and percent age of families below the poverty level, Sarasota County has a lower rate than both the state and the nation. Sarasota County also has a lower percentage of population and families in poverty when compared to Manatee and Charlotte counties.”

Sarasota County is a destination city and has a large number of workers in the hospitality and service industries. These industries pay less than jobs in manufacturing or high technology companies.