Ball State study finds Muncie's poverty rate is lower, but more are struggling

from the Star Press

By KEITH ROYSDON

MUNCIE -- A new Ball State University study maintains that Muncie's poverty rate is lower than previously announced, which prompted one local advocate for the poor to say the study might be an over-simplification.

One thing that the study's author and local experts in dealing with poverty can agree on: The number of the working poor locally is high and might even amount to a third of the city's population.

The first of a three-part report, "Understanding Regional Poverty: What is Poverty," was released this week by the Bureau of Business Research at Ball State University.

The report, by economist Michael Hicks, reiterates points made in September 2007, when experts said changes in how the U.S. Census measures poverty skewed the government's estimation of how many local people are considered poor. The presence of college students in Muncie and other Indiana cities with universities increased the number of annual incomes below the poverty threshold of $10,294.

Muncie's poverty rate was 24.2 percent in 2005, before the change in Census reporting, when it jumped to 32.6 percent in 2006. Hicks' study started from an even lower poverty rate of 23.1 percent, subtracted 15.3 percent -- representing 15,000 students -- and found an adjusted poverty rate of 7.8 percent. That number would rank Muncie below other college communities like Terre Haute, West Lafayette and South Bend.

"It's not a happy story, but [poverty] is not exploding like the Census suggests," Hicks said in an interview.

Molly Flodder, executive director of TEAMwork for Quality Living, said she had seen the Ball State study.

"I think there's some truth to that, but I think it simplifies the matter in a way that's too far in the opposite direction.

"Even if the rate is lower by 15 percent to account for the student population, that would still leave a higher poverty figure among non-university, city residents than he comes up with," Flodder said, adding that including rural Delaware County in the figuring also skews the urban poverty rate.

When asked for an estimate of how many local residents could be classified as working poor -- employed but not making a living wage -- Hicks said, "I would guess a third of Muncie residents easily fit the bill -- 20,000 is probably not far off."

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