Fresh Loaf

FINANCIAL CRISIS: Atlanta Union Mission served its annual day-before Thanksgiving meal to 1,500 people near downtown Atlanta.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Our 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.” (more…)

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HOSEA FEED THE HUNGRY: Sheila Zackery readies a load of bread to distribute to Atlanta’s homeless.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Every Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Hosea Feed the Hungry program feeds, clothes and offers medical care to more than 10,000 of Atlanta’s needy at Turner Field. It’s what the program is best known for, but it’s not all it does.

On Friday, the charity distributed food, blankets and toiletries to homeless Atlantans in shanties around the city. Loading the truck with supplies, outreach coordinator Sheila Zackery said poverty in Atlanta has grown in recent years, despite the city’s overall economic good fortune. Nearly 6,000 people came to the charity for meals last Christmas, up from 4,500 in 2006, she said.

Afemo Omilami, who is a board member and husband of the group’s president, Elisabeth Omilami, says 50 percent of the people the charity serves have jobs, but cannot keep up with housing and health care.

“In this great city, people are living in Third World conditions,” he said. “What does that say about us?”

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There’s an old cliche that a Democrat governor will promise (and sometimes deliver) to leave the citizens of a state better off than when he took office. A Republican governor measures success by whether he is better off. Certainly Gov. Sonny Perdue, with his Florida land deal, plays to type.

And it appears poor Georgians are feeling the pain. Census Bureau information released Tuesday shows 13.5 percent of Georgians were poor, compared to 12.4 percent in the 2003-2004 period, and 12.5 percent in the 2000-2001 period, when the state was in a recession (and when a Democrat was governor).

Alan Essig, executive director of the liberal-leaning Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, points to even more discouraging news from the Census. About 17.6 percent of Georgians did not have health insurance coverage in the 2004-2006 period, giving Georgia the 10th highest uninsured rate in the country, according to Essig’s review of the Census data. Nationwide, the number of uninsured was 47 million (15.3 percent), up 2.2 million since 2005. An additional 600,000 children nationwide were uninsured in 2006 compared to 2005.

“Despite American families’ continued struggle to afford health insurance for their children, some of Georgia’s representatives in Congress continue to oppose legislation that would extend health insurance to millions of uninsured children across the country,” Essig said in a statement. “As they return to Washington, Georgia’s leaders should rethink that position,” said Essig.

The Census Bureau data shows that 470,000 of Georgia’s children were living in poverty in 2006. The 2006 related child poverty rate was 19.7 percent, up from 15.7 percent in 2001. Child poverty was unchanged as compared to last year.

Essig said it is particularly disappointing that five years after the recession, child poverty rates in Georgia are not improving.

In 2006, median household income in our state stood at $46,832. This was not a statistically significant change from the 2005 level, but was still $1,566 below the 2001 level in inflation-adjusted terms. This shows that despite five years of recovery since the 2001 recession, many low- and moderate-income households have not regained ground lost during the downturn.

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