A report released a week or so ago had some sobering news for the Buckeye state.
In spite of a few rounds of good economic reports on the national level and, in spite of what our governor may report – Ohioans actually are getting poorer.
The Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies issued its 2012 State of Poverty in Ohio report. In it, the statistics show that Ohios poverty rate is 16.4 percent, while the national rate is 15.9 percent.
You may think you know what a poor person looks like: the welfare mom with her Section 8 housing voucher, her food stamps, kids running around undisciplined and dirty. Shes probably got her boyfriend living there (unbeknownst to the Housing Authority) and those food stamps just go to buy soda and junk food.
She knows kids are a commodity: have another one – get a bigger house and more aid and more food stamps. Life is pretty sweet.
I can say that because I have known people like that. I spent nearly a decade working in the low-income housing industry. Some days, Id practically lose faith in humanity, even though the vast majority of tenants I worked with would be considered the working poor, folks who really did try their best, even when they came up a little short on the first of the month.
But some would play the system like a finely-tuned violin. With your tax dollars taking care of them, they are free to watch their rented big-screen televisions and laugh at all the people who are dumb enough to have to work for a living.
But if you think they are the norm, youre wrong.
According to the OACAA report, 42.3 percent of Ohioans living in poverty WORK, either full time or part time. Typically, they do not have health care benefits. Between 2000 and 2011, the median hourly wage increased by 2.9 percent, while the average per capita cost of health care expenditures increased by 36.1 percent.
Its kind of hard to keep your head above water when youre fighting statistics like those.
And so you say, these people have low-paying jobs because they lack education. While in some cases that may be true, consider that (per the report) one in 12 Ohioans living in poverty has at least a four-year degree.
So tough it out, you say. Indeed, people have always scrimped and robbed Peter to pay Paul until the next paycheck comes round. But these are adults – at least they have a hand in shaping their fate.
Perhaps the saddest of all these statistics involve children: in 2011, one in four children under 18 lived in poverty. For those under 6, the ratio goes to one in three. Sure, a lot of these children are born to single moms, but the poverty rate actually is higher for single moms who work at least part time.
Where are the fathers? Where are the role models who show these children this is not the path you have to follow?
These are the next generations of Ohioans. While the governor talks about his concern that the best and brightest young people will leave the state for or after college, maybe hed better consider thinking about those who are staying only because they cant afford to leave.
If youre not one of these statistics, if you earn a decent wage and your children have two parents in the house and food on the table, say an extra prayer tonight for those who dont. Statistics say there are quite a few of them.
For more Reasonably Speaking, visit Tami online at www.WoosterWeeklyNews.com
