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By Dave Flessner

Staff Writer

Nearly one of every five students in Hamilton County lives in poverty, according to new government figures.

Despite overall growth in the local economy since 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the number of school-aged children living in poverty in Hamilton County has increased by more than 30 percent from 2000 to 2005. Across Tennessee, newly released census figures show the poverty rate rose in 2005 to the highest rate in 12 years.

"Part of the population is doing well and seeing income gains, but another part is falling behind," said David Penn, director of the Business and Economic Research Center at Middle Tennessee State University. "Those with the skills and education needed in today's global economy are doing well. But many others are not."

Even before the recent economic slowdown, median income in Tennessee rose a scant $2 from 2004 to 2005 to $38,947 -- the 10th lowest income among states, according to other data released this week by the Census Bureau. Median income is the point at which half of all people earned more and half earned less.

Harry M. Johnson, Sr., director of the Bradley-Cleveland Community Services Agency and president of the Tennessee Association of Community Action, said relief agencies are getting more requests for food and other help, and the number of people staying in homeless shelters continues to rise.

"The economy is growing, but there are a lot of people working in temporary jobs or at places with little or no benefits," he said. "When they get hit with a health problem or other emergency, they have a real problem."

Tennessee's overall poverty rate in 2005 rose to 15.6 percent of all residents, up from 15 percent in the previous year, census figures show. In 2005, 904,143 Tennesseans lived below the poverty level, including 40,125 people in Hamilton County, according to figures.

Nationwide, poverty rose from 12.7 percent to 13.3 percent in 2005, census figures show.

Families with children continue to have higher rates of poverty. Tennessee's poverty rate for children was 21.8 percent in 2005 and rose to as high as 36 percent in Grundy County.

In the classroom, school officials said, higher rates of poverty often create more hardships for educators.

"Educating kids who are in poverty is a more difficult task," said Ray Swoffard, deputy superintendent of campus support in Hamilton County. "If you have a middle-class child, he or she is more apt to have been in a formal preschool, been taken on vacations and been read to at home. But a student in poverty oftentimes comes from a latchkey home with a single parent who may also have lived in poverty growing up. Low-income children in many inner-city areas often lack the language skills going into school that children from wealthier families enjoy."

In Grundy County, where there are fewer higher-paying jobs and higher rates of poverty, school Superintendent Joel Hargis said there are more special education students and more challenges meeting federal No Child Left Behind academic standards.

"We have good teachers and students, but we don't always have the resources that a lot of other people do," he said.

Among Tennessee's 95 counties, Grundy had the state's fourth-highest poverty rate in 2005, census figures show.

The poverty figures released this week could help direct more federal money to Tennessee, however. Joanne Webb, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education, said the census figures released this week will help allocate federal Title I funds for disadvantaged schools in the 2008-2009 school year.

The 2005 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau are the latest figures available. But more recent figures on Tennessee's food stamp participation suggest that the growing economy may have helped to reduce the number of poor persons needing help in 2006 and 2007.

In November 2007, the most recent month for which figures are available, 886,906 Tennesseans were receiving food stamps, including 39,210 in Hamilton County. Two years earlier in November 2005 at the peak, 887,114 Tennesseans were on food stamps, including 40,404 in Hamilton County.

Families are eligible to apply for food stamps if their income is not more than 130 percent of poverty, or $26,845 for a family of four, according to the Tennessee Department of Human Services.

But the most recent Human Services figures show that the number of Tennesseans getting food stamps in November 2007 was 31 percent higher than in the same month five years earlier.

"Many of the service industry jobs that are growing don't pay as much as the manufacturing jobs they are replacing, so we are seeing more people in need," said Kerry Mullins, director of planning and evaluation for the department.

E-mail Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com

DEFINING THE DATA

The U.S. Census Bureau gathers information from its own American Community Surveys and other information such as food stamp enrollments, birth and death data and federal tax returns to calculate its poverty rate estimates, agency officials said. The 2005 numbers used in this story are the latest available from the bureau. Robert Bernstein, an agency spokesman, said poverty estimates for local jurisdictions typically are released more than two years after the estimate date to allow all the information to be compiled.

The poverty rates released Wednesday by the federal government will be used to allocate Title I funds to local schools and other assistance programs to local areas next year, officials said.

Poverty is defined by the federal government as three times the estimated cost of feeding a family based upon the assumption that food comprises one third of a poor family's expenses. According to the 2007 federal guidelines, the poverty level for a family of four is $20,650 a year.