Poor among plenty
For the first time in history, more poor people are living in the nation's suburbs than in the cities. Soon that may be true in the Chicago area; the number of those living in poverty in the collar counties has risen dramatically since 1999.
BY MARNI PYKE
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007
More and more suburban residents are barely scratching out a living, a report on Illinois poverty indicates.
More than 386,000 people in the collar counties of DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, Will and suburban Cook are among the have-nots, the study by the Mid-America Institute on Poverty of Heartland Alliance indicates.
And the number of those in need in the suburbs grew by 25 percent between 1999 and 2006, a rate that surpasses Chicago's rate of 8 percent.
"Poverty is a reality, not an urban phenomenon," said report researcher Amy Rynell of Heartland Alliance, a Chicago-based charitable organization.
In Illinois, the numbers of the poor come to 1.48 million, while in Chicago the tally is 573,486.
Heartland uses federal guidelines to define poverty as one person earning less than $10,210 a year or a family of four with an income of less than $20,650.
Experts say the poor are seniors, people with disabilities, domestic violence victims, young adults trying to make it on their own, single-parent families, new immigrants, individuals with health problems, and the unemployed.
They're also people with jobs, say social workers on the front lines.
"They're working hard, holding down two jobs and trying to find child care," explained Victoria Bran, director of the Rolling Meadows Police Neighborhood Resource Center.
The Illinois report echoes a national study by the Brookings Institution that found - for the first time in history - more of America's poor are living in the suburbs than in cities, a total of 1.2 million people in 2005.
snip
Other findings were that nearly 24,000 households a month use food pantries in Kane, Will, DuPage, Lake and McHenry counties and that a growing number of people in the Chicago region are paying more than one-third of their income toward rent.
State officials, meanwhile, say that in spite of the grim news, employment is increasing. Between 2005 and 2006, the unemployment rate went from 5.4 percent to 3.9 percent, Illinois Department of Employment Security economist Norman Kelewitz said.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin says yes, maybe more people have jobs, but they're not necessarily well-paying jobs.
"Incomes are not rising and the cost of living continues to go up," he said. "Costs for education, energy and health care are continuing to go up."
That's a sentiment shared by Maureen Murphy, association division manager at the Lake County branch of Catholic Charities.
The agency serves between 25,000 and 27,000 people a year and has noticed a dramatic increase in need.
Job losses and a high cost of living are hurting Lake County residents, Murphy said.
"If you work for a minimum wage in Lake, you have to work 133 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom apartment.
We are told daily that the economy is good, we have low unemployment. But the jobs aren't the same. Many subrbanites are having to get two jobs to afford the basics when 6 years ago one job sould suffice. And the cost of health care has risen so fast that people have no healthcare Insurance or policies that don't cover much.
