‘The Poverty Puzzle’
› Read “The Long Shadow,” the latest story in “The Poverty Puzzle” series in Wednesday’s Times Free Press.› To read all the stories in the series, which runs Sundays and Wednesdays through March 27, go to www.timesfreepress.com/povertypuzzle.
Clif CleavelandTo date, no candidate in the presidential primaries has highlighted poverty. The candidates speak as if every American is comfortably situated in the middle class or higher.
Perhaps the candidates avoid an issue for which they have no remedy. Perhaps they have not encountered any poor people in their hectic movements around the country. Perhaps they have simply avoided them, concluding that they are unlikely to vote.
The poverty belt in the U.S. begins in West Virginia and sweeps down into the South and westward to Arizona. In this extended region, only Florida has a poverty rate below 17 percent. The Federal Poverty Level is currently set at $24,250 annually for a family of four; under that figure, 15 percent of Americans live in poverty. Deep poverty is defined as an annual income 50 percent or less below the Federal Poverty Level – $12,000 or less for a family of four.
Poverty USA offers an interactive map that shows data by state and county (www.Poverty USA.org). The county maps show that major urban areas in the South are often islands of prosperity in a sea of poverty.