The Tennessean, March 10, 2008: None of us immune to effects of poverty rates in the state
Tennesseans should be embarrassed that the state’s poverty rate, 15.6 percent, is rising more quickly than the national rate of 13.3 percent.
Economic experts say things have gotten worse since census figures were tallied in 2005. That is disgraceful, and all Tennesseans should be concerned about how we attack this problem. Just as violence is a public health issue that has an impact on schools, poverty is a public health issue, as well.
“Poverty in our society is, in effect, similar to the common cold,” Gary Sandefur, Molly Martin and Thomas Wells write in the book Locked In The Poorhouse: Cities, Race and Poverty in the United States. “Although people may engage in behavior that increases or decreases their risk of catching a cold, it is naive to believe that no one will catch a cold even if they do all the right things.
“The same is true of poverty. People may behave in ways that increase or decrease their risks of being poor or the length of time that they remain poor, but it is foolish to believe that poverty is solely the fault of the poor.”
Too many poor people need help with such things as food, clothing, housing, getting medicine and paying their home energy bills.
In Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County, the Social Services Department released statistics showing that 47,702 families have children younger than 6. That data, according to the 2005 American Community Survey of the U.S. Bureau, also shows that in 29,875 families in Davidson County, all parents were working. Of the 233,588 households here, 23,187 earn less than $10,000 per year. The 233,588 households are divided into 135,214 families and 93,374 non-families.
The same data estimates that the following percentage of people living below the poverty level: 11.8 percent of all Davidson County families; 7 percent of married couples with related children under the age of 5; 30.9 percent of households headed by a female with no husband present; 48.7 percent of households headed by a female with no husband present with children under the age of 5; 14.6 percent of all people in Davidson County; 24.4 percent of all people with relative children under the age of 5.
“Early education is indeed important if we are going to reduce poverty,” said Roger Colton, an attorney with the Boston office of Fisher, Sheehan & Colton, a public finance and general economics firm. “But we really need to have more affordable and quality housing. One of the things we’ve found is that unaffordable housing and unaffordable home energy results in a variety of adverse consequences.
“You have frequent mobility, people looking for somewhere else to live or running away from bills. It’s quite clear that frequent mobility and a lack of educational attainment are related. Kids who are frequently mobile are behind in school in both math and reading. Addressing that will help promote kids getting a better education, which will help bring them out of poverty.”
Colton, who will be at the main library in Nashville on March 28 for a fuel energy summit, says poverty needs to be addressed in a holistic fashion. There are the educational aspects that need to be addressed, quality jobs, affordable housing and affordable home energy.
Colton said there are people qualified for the Earned Income Tax Credit who don’t know it. The program provides tax credits to the working poor and helps to bring people out of poverty.
Poverty, indeed, is a public health issue that Tennesseans need to address. If not, all of us probably will face some of the consequences that many of us think only the poor must face.