For the federal government, calculating poverty is as simple as using the cost of food at a guideline and applying that measure equally across the country.  In metro areas like Austin, families working in low-wage jobs don’t make enough to live given the local cost of living. Many more expenses – from housing to transportation to health care – factor into the costs of daily life.  Often these families may not be considered poor enough to qualify for safety net programs like SNAP or WIC, but still struggle to make ends meet. When it’s time to make tough choices, the food budget often suffers.

Counties with metro areas are also at a greater disadvantage in receiving federal funds for social assistance programs such as community development block grants. A 2006 study by the United States Department of Agriculture found that when they adjusted for the cost of living for metro areas, the rate of poverty is higher in metro areas, and the prevalence of poverty in non-metro areas is 12 percent lower than in metro areas.  However, adjusting poverty according to the cost of living could have negative effects in funding for non-metro social safety nets, where there is historically a larger concentration of older adults – many of whom live on fixed incomes.

Our new infographic on HungerisUNacceptable.com shows the cost of living for families of different sizes in the Austin-Round Rock area based on the CPPP Family Budget Estimator project.

Choose a family size and learn how the cost of living compares to the federal poverty level.  You can then help families “stuck in the middle” between poverty and a living income by going shopping in our “virtual grocery store.”

Drag the food items to the shopping cart and click the donate button to donate the cost of groceries to help Central Texas families at risk of hunger.  It’s a fun, interactive way to help families “stuck in the middle,” and to learn about the tough choices our Austin-Round Rock neighbors make every day.

Let us know what you think.

This story was submitted through our online Hunger Stories.

By Pamela U. Wilson

Have you ever had to ask for help, knowing your children will suffer unless you get it?  Welfare offices call to tell you they have a job for you, but there is no money to get you to work. Questions run through your head: how long will I see my children living in poverty? How long will the cycle of welfare continue?

I was a child living on welfare in the projects with my mom, brothers and sisters. I remember days of no food, clothes and old shoes. I used to see my mom going to trucks for powdered food so that we could eat. To clean our clothes, we had to bend over a tub and wash them by hand, without laundry soap. Our family was often sick with sores, and flies were on us.

The lifestyle of a poor person often comes with loss of pride and of dignity as a human. Poverty is a lifestyle where shame and low self-esteem become a norm. I can remember the terrible conditions families like mine experienced when times were hard.

Imagine if your family lived in extreme poverty: no money for clothes, shoes, medicine, hot water, soap, heat, transportation, hospital visits, or furniture. The beds smell terrible since there are no sheets for the mattresses. The house has a stench of rotten food, milk and old urine. Most of the time food is cooked with old grease. It’s possible that you cannot wash the dishes because the water is cold. The refrigerator doesn’t work and has been broken for weeks. Clothes must be washed out by hand, without warm water.

Perhaps your children go to school wearing smelly, dirty clothes, old shoes, and without school supplies. Your babies have runny noses, open sores, pink eyes, worms, and suffer from malnutrition. The gnats cover the rotten food and trash that you cannot get rid of, since there is nowhere to take it. To see kids living in such poverty, makes me angry.

Now, imagine trying your best to climb out of poverty by begging for help from office-to-office. You circle a few blocks trying to figure out what you will say, until you find out this was the wrong office, and then you have to do it all over again. The county, state or government welfare offices will maybe allocate to your family $75-$250 a month for rent, food and bills. Getting the other necessities for your family is out of the question. Many food banks and clinics are there to help, but there is no way to get there since you don’t have enough money to ride the bus.

Years later, when I started a family of my own, my husband lost his job and we went to the welfare office for help. The state gave our family $259 for the month. This money did not pay all the bills. We had no way to pay for things we needed. We couldn’t use our cars because there was no money for gas. 

Without a steady source of income, food is hard to come by. Sometimes I go home with a can of green beans and old bread, and that is all I can feed my kids. Sometimes our income is so little that we have to ask for help. There are other times I have given my food away to help someone else.

It is still hard waiting for food between pay checks. We have to save money in order to buy gas and get to work. As a diabetic adult, I must take care of what food I can eat being mindful of fats and sugars. When times are tight, I am very grateful for all the food I have received from the Food Bank.

I can understand why people live in shame and despair while living in poverty. Living in this condition has a way to make or break families. Families must get help when they need it, but not lose their dignity as a human beings. My husband and I were fortunately aware that our dignity was the most precious thing we had besides our kids, and our pride remains strong.

Thank you, Pamela, for sharing your story.

Lisa Goddard
Advocacy and Online Marketing Director

The 2008 American Community Survey (ACS), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, provides a snapshot of the nation’s economic and social health.

For the Austin-Round Rock MSA (Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties), the report is not promising:

• 206,337 live in poverty
• 66,060 children live below the poverty line
• 30,232 worked this past year and are poor
• 4,293 worked 12 months out of the year and, in spite of their work, was still poor

In a September 10th interview with the Star-Telegram, State demographer Karl Eschbach gave a sobering reminder that the data on income and poverty do not reflect the recession’s impact on earnings. Texas didn’t really enter the recession until late 2008, so the poverty numbers won’t reflect that until next year.  ”In some respect, those are some of the best years for Texas in relation to the nation since 1981 or 1982. But for poverty and income, I would expect to see numbers in the next round to not look as good,” said Karl.

If you missed the Statesman’s recent report on Austin’s poverty numbers, read it here.

Lisa Goddard
Advocacy and Online Marketing Director

Census shows sharp rise in poverty. Feeding America study shows increase in food demand. Texas ranks above national average.

Last Friday, census numbers revealed the poverty rate climbed to 13.2 percent from 12.5 percent. The number of people living in poverty rose to 39.8 million last year, an increase of 2.6 million from 2007, and 15.9 percent of Texans lived in poverty in 2008.

In early September 2009, Feeding America conducted a survey of food banks to learn more about the challenges they, their member agencies, and clients face. The report shows a staggering increase in food bank demand (99 percent report an increase in demand for emergency food assistance over the past year). I encourage you to learn about what our sister food banks are reporting around the country, what’s going on in Texas, and what we’re facing in Central Texas.  

What happens when families in poverty do not have a safety net through family, friends or federal feeding programs like SNAP (food stamps)?  Food Banks become their lifeline, and it shows.

Putting the numbers into context:

The official U.S. poverty rate is based on income thresholds. According to census calculations, a family of four is considered poor if pretax income falls below $21,660; $10,830 for an individual.  There are some advocacy and interest groups who assert that this number grossly underestimates what it really means to be poor in America. Recently, the Obama administration agreed, and implemented changes to the calculation of poverty, specifically for seniors, to account for medical expenses and other costs of living.

Others feel that in comparison to other poor individuals in the world, America’s poor “aren’t really that bad off.”  Do you think $21,660 can support a family of four’s nutritious diet, provide them with adequate, warm housing for the winter, prepare them for work and school, and support basic health care needs?   

What’s at stake for counting the poor?

According to Nonprofits Count, lower-income individuals are frequently undercounted by the census, leading to underfunding of critical services and infrastructure and underrepresentation in government.  States receive an average $1,200 per person annually through census data-driven federal formula grants. As you can see, Central Texas is leaving money on the table, as evidenced by our low census participation rates in the last census.

What you can do.

Call your Congresspersons today and tell them what you think about the state of poverty in your community.  Share the statistics from the Feeding America report so they know the staggering need for food assistance. Ask for reform and support for Central Texas’s poor, and especially children in poverty.

Get involved with census outreach to ensure all Central Texans are counted. Click here to find out how you can support nonprofits with their outreach.

From David Davenport
President and CEO

As Poverty in America Awareness Month comes to an end, I focus on the strategies and behaviors that the public sector (government), private sector (business) and social sector (non-profit organizations and the faith communities) can use to significantly reduce the rate of poverty in our nation, state and community. Today, I focus on policies and strategies I believe our government can (and should) undertake to reduce the intolerable and unacceptable level of poverty, and its impact on 36 million Americans.

Step 1 – Let’s be honest: Adjust the current federal poverty standard to reflect the true nature of poverty. The old standard has been criticized for years and isn’t relevant when compared to the current cost of living in most communities. Yes, this will increase the number of people living below or at the poverty level, but at least we’ll have a real picture of where we are, and can develop strategies to address the issue. Agreement on an appropriate measure will enable policy makers to decide whether (and when) progress is being made. 

Step 2 – No living wage – no government partnership: Since most people living in poverty have some income, it’s only logical that many can be lifted out of poverty if their wage equaled or exceeded the living wage for their community. Government shouldn’t mandate a living wage, but it should give incentives for vendors and partners to provide its employees adequate health coverage and wages.. Government must require that its contractual relationships with for-profit vendors and non-profit partners only be with entities that provide health coverage and a living wage to their employees. No exceptions.

Step 3 – Lift people up by feeding them: This strategy focuses on food insecurity and nutrition-related health problems. It focuses on improving the Food Stamp program (one of the largest and most basic anti-poverty efforts in the United States). It builds on the fact that food stamps are widely used and that nutrition, obesity and diabetes are serious problems among low-income groups. (The Food and Nutrition Service is in a position to provide a catalyst for communities addressing these issues.)

Now, before you scream “big government” or “tax and spend redistribution,” let me note that financial analysts at Goldman Sachs suggest that increasing food stamp benefits has a broad, positive economic effect. They predict that for every dollar spent increasing food stamp benefits, $1.73 of economic activity is generated. For every dollar that is spent on tax rebate checks, only $1.26 of economic activity is generated. In Travis County, only 26 percent of those eligible to receive food stamp benefits are enrolled in the program. That has to change. 

Lastly, food stamps must be counted as income when poverty and progress against poverty is assessed.

Step 4 – Lock’em up, but let’s think long and hard before we throw away the key:  Government must be pressed to deal with the issues surrounding incarceration and its long-term impact . A vicious cycle of criminal activity exists in many communities: disrupted families, limited economic prospects, high poverty, criminal activity, incarceration, etc. Government must seek alternatives to break the vicious cycle of incarceration and poverty.

I believe government is not currently equipped to solve the issue of poverty in our country. These steps listed above are only a starting point. It will require all of us – communities, corporate partners and the social sector – working together to meet this difficult challenge. Poverty, hunger and homelessness are unacceptable, and success requires us to work together. Stay tuned this week, as I will share my ideas and strategies for the private and social sectors.