Poverty rate below average

from The Times Record News

Local percentage lower than state, national

By Carroll Wilson/Times Record News

Editor's note: This is the second in a three-part series of stories on the area's economy.

More than one out of 10 people in the immediate three-county area live at or below the official poverty level, according to a report just issued by a Midwestern State University economist.

Among children, the poverty rate is more than 16 percent.

Dr. John Martinez, who heads up the Mamie Raborn Center for Economic Education at MSU, released his findings in the latest Wichita Falls Regional Economic Outlook Report. It is published by the Dillard School of Business Administration.

The typical person living in poverty in the Wichita Falls metropolitan statistical area is white, female, under 18 years of age with less than a high-school education and no job.

To be classified as living in poverty, a family of two can earn no more than $13,200 per year. For family of four, the amount is $20,000.

The average household size in the Wichita Falls MSA is 2.41, information posted at various demographic Web sites shows, and median household income is $37,000.

Across the nation, a single person with no high-school diploma has mean annual earnings of about $20,000, according to new figures released this week by the Census Bureau.

The poverty rate in this three-county area is better than the rate for the state and the United States, according to Martinez.

Texas' rate is nearly 18 percent. The U.S. rate is about 13 percent. The MSA rate is 12 percent. The actual number here is 16,300.

"It is great to know our citizens are wealthier on average than others in Texas or the nation," said Tim Chase, CEO and president of the Wichita Falls Board of Commerce & Industry. "However, one out of every 10 people in the Wichita Falls region is living below the poverty level, and that's too many."

Actually, the way the official poverty threshold is computed by federal agencies is under increasing criticism for at least two reasons.

First, some critics point out that the model was created about 50 years ago. And the level is arbitrarily set at roughly three times the annual cost of a nutritionally adequate diet.

Second, as Martinez points out, some economists "argue that levels of poverty should be estimated on a relative basis that is relative to the situation of others. The minimum official poverty threshold as a percent of average U.S. family income has been falling over time. Consequently, official statistics may tend to underestimate the degree of poverty that truly exists. Based on a relative measure, the rate of poverty would be significantly higher than the numbers suggest."

Martinez' study does not address possible solutions.

But, Chase suggests that, "Increasing the number and quality of jobs in the area is certainly one way to fix the problem, but 40 percent of the workforce living below the poverty level did not graduate from high school.

"We can create large numbers of high-paying jobs and it will have little impact on these folks until they gain the skills needed to fill those positions."