[Alabama] State's 'poverty is very real problem'

From The Huntsville Times

By TAYLOR BRIGHT
Times Montgomery Bureau tbright@htimes.com
More than 21% of children affected, project report says

MONTGOMERY - Sixteen percent of Alabamians - and one out of every five children - live in poverty, says a study the Alabama Poverty Project released Friday.

"Poverty is a very real problem in this state," said Wayne Flynt, retired professor of history at Auburn University and president of the Alabama Poverty Project.

The data, from the 2000 U.S. Census by Auburn University Montgomery, shows that one in three black Alabamians lives below the poverty level, compared with one in 10 whites. One in five Alabamians of "other races," primarily Hispanics, live below the poverty level.

"Our greatest poverty is among our children," Flynt said. More than 21 percent of the state's children 17 and under live in poverty.

"We've got to do something to break the cycle of poverty, especially in children," Flynt said at a press conference held in front of the Alabama State House.

Most counties in North Alabama have lower poverty rates than counties in South Alabama. In Madison County, 7 percent of whites and 22 percent of blacks live below the poverty level. Just more than 11 percent of "other races" live below the line.

Although one in five blacks live below the line in Madison County, the number has improved from 1990 when 26 percent of the black population lived below the poverty line.

In Morgan County, 30 percent of blacks were below the poverty level in 2000, and in Limestone County, 24 percent of blacks were.

The state's poorest county is Wilcox in rural southwest Alabama, where 39.9 percent of residents and 47 percent of children live below the poverty level, according to the study, which was based on census figures and other statistical data from the years 1990 and 2000.

The lowest poverty rate was in Shelby County, in Birmingham's southern suburbs, where only 6.3 percent of residents were living in poverty.

Flynt said his group is offering the information in a book to raise awareness of the state's poverty problem. "We tried to make this non-partisan, non-ideological," he said.

The state needs to raise the income tax threshold for poor Alabama families, he said. A family of four that earns as little as $4,600 is taxed in Alabama.

"We have the most regressive taxes, rooted in the 1901 constitution, in the nation," Flynt said. "That's the problem and that's an unconscionable problem."

Gov. Bob Riley has proposed raising the income tax threshold for residents living below the poverty line.

Flynt also said the state needs to adequately educate its children and integrate the schools.

"We need to stop the resegregation of schools across class lines like what is happening in Huntsville, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa," Flynt said.

The poverty project is made up of a coalition of educators, citizens and organizations that represent disadvantaged residents.