Data on Poverty in Michigan

Analysis:

The story provides a great deal of data information for Michigan and several Michigan communities on both the East and West sides of the state. The data mostly deals with poverty rates, household income, joblessness, and the percentage of people without health insurance.

The Press article quotes a total of five people. One is Governor Granholm’s Press Secretary, one was a representative with the Kent County Department of Human Services, and the other three were with non-profit research institute’s or public policy organizations. The Press article referred to one of them, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, as a “liberal Washington-based policy group”, and the other two are Lansing based, the Michigan League for Human Services and the Public Policy Associates Inc. The comment from the Robert Greenstein, a spokesman for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that the Press included was about the data as well, even thought their press release had some critical comments about the administration. All 5 people who are quoted make claims about poverty, jobs or health insurance, but not once does the Press seek to verify such claims. One question that listeners might ask themselves is since the story is about people whose income has dropped, who live in poverty, or who have no health insurance, why weren’t people in those circumstances interviewed? Essentially, the Press missed an opportunity to put a human face on the data.

Story:

Income falls; poverty rises in state: 10.4 Percent Indigent in Kent County and 7.2 percent in Ottawa County
By Sarah Kellogg
Press Bureau

WASHINGTON — The economic news for Michigan seems to go from bad to worse.
U.S. Census Bureau figures released Tuesday show that the number of Michigan residents living in poverty went up between 2003 and 2004, and the state’s median household income went down.

“The report confirms what we’ve known all along,” said Sharon Parks, a spokeswoman for the Michigan League for Human Services, a policy and research group in Lansing. “This is pretty much a jobless recovery, and even those with jobs aren’t seeing major improvements in their incomes.”

While Michigan’s poverty rate of 12.3 percent in 2004 was lower than the national average of 12.7 percent, it was up from the state’s 11.5 percent poverty rate in 2003.
About 1.2 million people in Michigan were living in poverty last year.

Between 2003 and 2004, Michigan’s median household income dipped by $1,270, from $45,550 to $44,280. The U.S. median household income remained stagnant at $44,436 in 2004.

Michigan also has the poorest city in the nation, the Census Bureau reported. Detroit was elevated to the No. 1 spot with a 33.6 percent poverty rate in 2004. El Paso, Texas, and Miami were Nos. 2 and 3.

In West Michigan, Kent County had an estimated 10.4 percent of people in poverty and Ottawa County, 7.2 percent.

“I’m glad to see that our numbers are somewhat better than the state average,” said Andy Zylstra, director of Kent County’s Department of Human Services. “We certainly have the impression that our economy is better than some other places in the state.”

But Zylstra said it remains tough for many welfare clients to find work as local factories continue to cut back, close or ship jobs out of the state or country.

“We are concerned about losing manufacturing jobs because that’s where a lot of our clients find entry-level work,” Zylstra said.

The estimate found that 14.2 percent of Kent County children under age 18 lived in poverty and 8.7 percent in Ottawa County.

Single-parent families — long linked with poverty — continued to post poverty rates far above that for all families. The poverty rate for female-headed households with no husband present was 20.3 percent in Kent County, 14.2 percent in Ottawa County. For all families, the rate was 6.8 percent in Kent County, 5.9 percent in Ottawa County.

Michigan isn’t alone in suffering through the economic doldrums. Twenty-five states saw their median household incomes drop in 2004 and 33 states saw their poverty rates rise.
“If (2004) were a recession year, these would actually be quite reasonable results,” said Robert Greenstein, a spokesman for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal Washington-based policy group. “For the third year of an economic recovery, they have to be branded as quite disappointing.”

State officials were disappointed as well, noting they have tried to diversify Michigan’s economy to trim its reliance on automobile manufacturing and expand its economic base.
“We don’t need a report out of Washington to tell us that people are hurting in Michigan,” said Liz Boyd, Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s press secretary. “Michigan’s reliance on old industries has to change, and change is hard.”

Michigan’s child poverty rate rose between 2003 and 2004, jumping from 15 percent to nearly 18 percent, the report shows.

Detroit had about 48 percent of children in poverty, second only to Atlanta. The 2004 poverty threshold was $19,311 for a family of four.

The differences between Michigan’s haves and have-nots was most clearly illustrated in the economic results from Oakland and Wayne counties, which are neighbors in Southeast Michigan.

Oakland was Michigan’s most affluent county, according to the data, with a median household income of $63,035 in 2004, while Wayne County’s median household income was $40,322.

There was one piece of good news in the report for Michigan. The number of Michigan residents without health insurance declined slightly between 2003 and 2004, inching down from 11.3 percent to 11.2 percent. About 1 million people in Michigan are without health insurance.

“The number of people who do have health insurance in Michigan is still above average,” said Laurence Rosen, an analyst with Public Policy Associates Inc., a Lansing-based policy group. “A lot of that has to do with the fairly heavy union presence here in the state.”