TERRE HAUTE —
New U.S. Census Bureau data show that poverty slightly increased in Indiana in 2011, including in counties that make up a statistical area centered on Terre Haute.
Those national and regional increases are not as great as Fort Wayne’s for the same period, nor do they match communities such as Evansville and Lafayette, which saw decreases from 2010 to 2011, but which still have poverty rates 6 or 7 percentage points higher than the Terre Haute area.
Indiana’s poverty rate increased 0.7 percent to 16 percent in 2011, up from 15.3 percent in 2010, according to new numbers released Thursday from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. That puts 1,011,017 Hoosiers below the poverty rate in 2011 and is an increase of 48,242 people from 962,775 in 2010.
The current federal poverty level is $22,811 in annual income for a family of four. Low income is defined as having a family income below 200 percent of the poverty threshold, or $45,622 for a family of four.
Indianapolis had a poverty rate of 21.4 percent for 2011, up from 21.1 percent, while Fort Wayne had a poverty rate of 20.8 percent in 2011, up from 16.5 percent in 2010. Other cities saw a decrease, such as Evansville, which had a poverty rate decrease to 19.2 percent in 2011 from 22.2 percent in 2010, and, Lafayette, poverty rate decreased to 18 percent in 2011 from 22.3 percent in 2010.
Statistics for Terre Haute and similar-sized cities will be released by the U.S. Census in late October.
However, the Census does have data on the Terre Haute Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Vigo, Clay, Sullivan and Vermillion counties.
The MSA’s poverty rate for all families increased to 11.4 percent in 2011, up from 10.7 percent in 2010. The poverty rate for all people in the MSA stood at 17 percent in 2011, up from 15.9 percent in 2011.
“The poverty rates for the Terre Haute MSA is really statistically unchanged in 2011 from 2010, but it is significant drop from 2009, when the poverty rate was 15.3 percent,” said Curtis Skinner, a labor economist and director of family economic security at the National Center for Children in Poverty, part of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Skinner holds a doctoral degree in economics from Fordham University.
However, Skinner said there are “significant declines in income measures [in the Terre Haute MSA], such as for households with earnings, where the mean household income dropped from $60,578 in 2010 to $55,315 [last year]. Per capita income dropped from $22,310 to $20,361 and median income for workers dropped from $26,799 in 2010 to $22,938 in 2011.”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” said John Etling, executive director of Catholic Charities of Terre Haute. “We know that in a lot of the programs that we work with have shown an increase or a more frequent number of times people are requesting food.”
Etling said 54 percent of students in the Vigo County School Corp. are on free or reduced-cost lunch programs.
Cindy Hoag, captain at the Salvation Army in Terre Haute, said the agency has seen a 20-percent increase of new people receiving services this year, ranging from clothing and food to utility payment assistance.
A study done last year by the Terre Haute Ministerial Association found that Terre Haute was “rising to the occasion” on food provided among churches, nonprofit agencies, soup kitchens and food pantries, Hoag said.
“But, because of the increases we are seeing this year, we are still seeing a bigger need for food and donations,” she added.
The Salvation Army in August served 523 people with groceries; 33 with clothing; 17 with utility assistance; five with rent assistance; and 565 people with personal hygiene products that cannot be bought with food stamps, Hoag said.
Nationally, Vermont was the only state in the new Census numbers that had a decline in poverty, both in the number of people and percentage living in poverty. In 27 states and the District of Columbia, there was no change in either the number of people in poverty or the poverty rate.
The number and percentage of people in poverty increased in 17 states between 2010 and 2011. The lowest poverty rates were in New Hampshire (8.8 percent), Maryland (10.1 percent), New Jersey (10.4 percent) and Alaska, (10.5 percent). The highest poverty rates were in Mississippi (22.6 percent) and New Mexico (21.5 percent).
Among large metropolitan areas, poverty rates ranged from 8.3 percent to 37.7 percent for 2011.
Reporter Howard Greninger can be reached at 812-231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.
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