Census - State's poverty lower than U.S.

Valerie Watson reports increased demand for goods from Kansas City's Harvester food bank. In Southeast Missouri's Bootheel, Dorene Johnson is juggling requests to her community agency for rural utility assistance.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 11.5 percent of Missourians were living below the poverty level last year, one percentage point beneath the national figure.

Poverty rates had been steady or declining nationally during the prosperity of the 1990s, economists said. But with the economy slowing since the Census snapshot was taken in April 2000, Watson, Johnson and others on the front lines of Missouri's charitable efforts believe the number of needy is growing.

Another round of Census numbers set for release today indicate those living below the poverty level in the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City exceeded the national and statewide percentages last year.

The same numbers indicated that booming St. Charles County, suburban home to many migrating former St. Louisans, had the lowest number of people in poverty among the nation's major population centers.

The annual federal poverty level is based on family size. For one person, the level is $8,590 a year, rising to $17,650 for a family of four.

The Census 2000 Supplemental Survey indicated some 621,429 Missourians had incomes below the federal poverty line in 2000. It estimated that 73,409 of those were in the city of St. Louis, where 22 percent of residents surveyed reported being in poverty.

Kansas City's ranks in poverty were estimated at 65,795, or 15.4 percent of local population below the income benchmark.

"Each year for the last three years, we have distributed 2 million more pounds of food than the previous year. We find that often these are the working poor, those households still struggling even though at least one person was employed," Watson said Monday.

Last year, Harvester provided 15.5 million pounds of donated food to community agencies in 10 western Missouri counties and Kansas City.

Just 2.8 percent of St. Charles County residents were at poverty or below.

Federal and Missouri social services agencies rely on the Census numbers to help determine eligibility requirements for many aid programs.

Bootheel poverty

Non-governmental agencies such as Harvester and the Bootheel Food Bank in Sikeston, Mo., help bridge the poverty gap through donated food, clothing and assistance on rent and utilities.

Economic analyst Phil Miller said the Census snapshot was taken as the economy was "going full tilt" in spring 2000. Since then, Wall Street prices tumbled and only slowly climbed back; big employers have laid off large numbers of workers; and the Sept. 11 terror attacks have had their own economic impact.

"Especially with the layoff situation, you will have people who are no longer earning anything and who may have been just at the poverty threshold. They could slip right down," said Miller, assistant director of the economic and Policy Analysis Research Center at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

The calls for help keep coming as winter approaches.

"Many people couldn't keep up with their electric bills during the summer and were cut off, and now they enter the winter with no utilities," Johnson said from Sikeston. "We get probably 20 calls a day about assistance, and we can maybe help three or four a day."

The supplemental Census survey was distributed to 700,000 households in 1,203 counties nationwide. It was administered at the same time as the 2000 census. The census provided a broader picture of social trends because it was based on forms mailed to 120 million households.

The report is part of a Census Bureau test to see if such a survey done every year can replace the long census questionnaire sent out every decade.