New poverty stats for Washington D.C.

A group of poverty-fighting organizations in the Washington D.C. area say that one in five of the residents live below the poverty line. The report also says that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening in the district. Washington D.C. also has a higher rate of child poverty than the nation's average, as one in three children are in poverty.

From the Washington Post, writer Tim Craig gives us more from the report.

The study, undertaken by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute on behalf of a coalition of more than 40 local organizations, concludes that last year the District experienced its biggest single-year increase in poverty since 1995.

Based on unemployment rates and other data, the coalition estimates that the city has 106,500 residents -- up 11,000 in a year -- living at or below the poverty rate, which in 2009 was $21,800 for a family of four.

"With D.C.'s unemployment rate of 12 percent, it's very likely poverty is also on the rise in 2010 and a decline could be a long way away," said Jenny Reed, a policy analyst at the institute.

The coalition notes that the District's official rate won't be known until more census income data are released later in the year. But the report is designed to sway the political debate in the District this year, when voters will elect a mayor, a D.C. Council chairman and six council members.

The institute, DC Appleseed, the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia and more than three dozen other organizations have teamed to form Defeat Poverty DC. The group hopes to force candidates and elected officials to make combating poverty a central focus of their campaigns.

"D.C. has struggled with this persistent poverty for years and years," said Michael Edwards, the campaign director for Defeat Poverty DC. "We are going to be looking for elected officials to identify how they would address these issues and bring us back down.