Poverty stats may be skewed

from The Ball State daily News

Student housing increases numbers for local survey
Joe Cermak

The inclusion of Ball State University students, prison inmates and nursing home residents might have skewed results in a survey that stated Muncie had one of the highest poverty rates in the nation, Clive Richmond, senior program analyst for the American Community Survey, said.

It included students in order to become more representative of the population than the 2005 American Community Survey.

"We did this to survey everyone equally," he said. "This is the first year we had money to do so."

Students involved in the survey were considered "living in group quarters," which are not considered "housing units," a different sub-group in the study, Richmond said.

Because of the inclusion of those living in group quarters, Muncie's poverty rate increased from 24.2 percent in 2005 to 32.6 percent in 2006.

"There are, of course, people who live in situations other than households," he said. "We hold monthly estimates and we sub-sample group quarters. We're trying to be consistent with everything else we've done."

Richmond said those who conducted the survey knew this increase would happen.

"We knew it was going to happen and on the [online] survey page we have a guide to compare the data [to the 2005 survey]," he said.

The Web site shows how many students were interviewed, Richmond said.

"It's in the data called educational attainment," he said. "There will be a 'currently enrolled in school' selection and that is how we tabulate it, and it's by grade level - currently enrolled in college."

Richmond said there is a separation between the poverty rates for people who live in "housing units" and people who live in "group quarters," which is displayed online.

Senior accounting major Brenden Williams said it was wrong to include students in the survey.

"I don't think it's right to [include students]," he said. "We're only here eight months a year. We give a lot of money to the economy but we're here for an education, but not to live here."

The poverty threshold for single individuals, according to the survey, is $10,294. Anyone under is considered impoverished.

Williams said no college students make that much of money, but with his roommates included, that is a different story.

"As a group, we clear the poverty rate, but that's for four people living here, not one," he said.