Poverty rates up in county, Triangle

from The Durham News

Changes in welfare rules, influx of immigrants, cooling of economy cited for rising number of poor.

Jim Wise, Staff Writer
Durham County has a poverty rate of 15.6 percent, commissioners chairwoman Ellen Reckhow said in her state-of-the-county speech this week. Application rates for food stamps and Medicaid have almost doubled in this decade.

"I was very surprised," she said afterward.

It's not just Durham. Right across the booming, prosperous Triangle, numbers suggest that hard times are spreading and have been for years.

"I think three things are going on," said Michael Walden, an economist at N.C. State University.

For one thing, he said, eligibility rules have changed for public assistance; for another, the Triangle has had an influx of immigrants likely to need economic aid; and third, the local boom is "entering a slow phase."

The U.S. Census estimated Durham County's 2006 poverty rate at 15.6 percent -- up 2.2 points from the 13.4 percent reported in 2000. Wake County's rate rose from 7.8 percent to 9.1 percent.

Orange County's poverty rate fell from 14.1 percent to 13.9 percent; but, while the county's population grew 7 percent between 2000 and early 2006, according to state estimates, its population eligible for Medicaid grew 44 percent.

Wake County averaged 43,480 food-stamp recipients per month in 2007, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. That was a 122-percent increase from 2000. During the same period, the county's population grew just 25 percent.

"What we're tracking, all along it's been a significant increase," said Nancy Coston, social-services director in Orange County. "It is real."

Another reason Medicaid and food-stamp numbers are up is that local agencies have increased efforts to enroll those who do qualify, said Brad Dean of the state human-services office. "Children need to be covered," said Sam Haithcock, Durham County social-services director.

"The Medicaid increase is not too difficult to understand, because of the cost of medical insurance," Haithcock said.

"We have a considerable number of people in Durham who are low- or moderate-wage people," he said.

"All the [price] increases in the basic things over the last seven or eight years, especially last year ... I think that's a partial explanation."

The Triangle's per capita incomes have gone up since 2000, but in Durham and Wake counties they have not kept pace with the rising cost of living.

"Whenever people cut back in the middle class," said Coston, in Orange County, "then [in] the service industry and some of the manufacturing industry jobs aren't paying as much. ... Some people will tell you they aren't working as much.

"It's not just lost jobs," she said, "you have to kind of look at a bigger picture."

Responding to the poverty indicators, Reckhow called for intensifying efforts to reach the needy with public-aid programs, and for expanded literacy, financial-skill and occupational training. Walden, the economist, also said education is important but had his sights a bit higher.

"Education is really the dividing line in our modern life," he said. "By 'education' I mean college. If you don't have a college degree, you're not doing as well."