More Georgians poor now than during last recession
August 26, 2008 at 10:13 pm by Ken Edelstein in NewsOur friends at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute pointed us toward a couple of depressing reports today from the U.S. Census Bureau.
One said Georgia’s poverty rate was a lot higher in 2007 even than it was in the depths of the 2001 recession. Not only that, but middle-class Georgians haven’t gained any economic ground since the recession.
The other report said more people in the state now don’t have health insurance.
“Even after six years of economic recovery, Georgians have not regained the ground lost in the 2001 recession,” GBPI Deputy Director Sarah Beth Gehl said in a statement. “With the weakening of the economy in 2008, things are likely to get worse before they get better.”
Gehl was referring to two Census Bureau reports released today — the American Community Report and the Current Population Study. According to GBPI’s release:
Georgia’s poverty rate was 14.3 percent in 2007, which was not a statistically significant difference from 2006. However, Georgia’s 2007 poverty rate ranked 13th highest among states and remained well above the 2001 level of 11.7 percent. The child poverty rate in Georgia was 19.4 percent in 2007 – totaling over 480,000 Georgia children in poverty. (Note, in 2007, a family of four with two children was in poverty if their income was below $21,027.)
For income, Georgia was average, ranking 24th in median household income in 2007. After adjusting for inflation, median income for households increased from just over $48,000 in 2006 to $49,136 in 2007, but remained statistically unchanged from the 2001 level.
Based on two-year averages, the percentage of Georgians without health insurance remained unchanged from 2004-2005 to 2006-2007, but remained higher than in 2000-2001. Over 1.6 million Georgians, 17.6 percent of the population, were uninsured in 2006-2007, giving Georgia the 10th highest share of uninsured among the states. In 2000-2001, 15.0 percent of Georgians were uninsured.
Seems to me a pretty strong indictment of the country’s and the state’s political leadership, neither of which has done much to lower poverty, raise wages or solve the health insurance crisis. At least, the Democratic Congress passed a (modest) increase in the minimum wage last year after years of the hike being blocked by Republicans.
GBPI says Georgia legislators could take a few basic steps, such as adopting a state earned income tax credit, investing in adult education and child care assistance, raising the minimum wage, and expanding health insurance for working families.
Last winter, of course, they were too busy trying to outsource prison labor to private companies and allowing auto insurers to raise premiums at will to bother helping ordinary Georgians.
Now, with lower tax receipts — and having frittered away revenue on tax breaks for special interests — Gov. Sonny Perdue and company are planning to balance the budget on the programs by cutting things like health care and education.
“If the economic downturn continues, as expected, Georgia’s policymakers are likely to face tough decisions about how to balance the state’s budget,” said GBPI Executive Director Alan Essig. “They should avoid taking steps that would make it even harder for struggling families to get by.”
Amen, brother.
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