Ben and Sharneka Hunter are a fast-food family.
The Wilmington husband and wife work at Burger Kings in different cities – Ben, 43, in Wilmington, Sharneka, 30, in New Castle.
Both earn hourly minimum-wage salaries of $7.25. And both need food stamps and Medicaid to augment their combined $17,000 yearly salary – $2,500 under the federal poverty line – so that they and their 9-year-old daughter can survive.
“I don’t think it’s fair to be underpaid,” Ben said.
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Philadelphia County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In an unusually frank document, the city has laid out stark statistical descriptions of poverty in Philadelphia, accompanied by a plan to try to deal with the problem.
The Shared Prosperity Philadelphia plan, presented Thursday at the Central Library of the Free Library of Philadelphia, states that at a “staggering 28 percent,” the poverty rate here is the highest among the nation’s 10 largest cities. More than 430,000 of the city’s 1,547,600 residents live below the federal poverty line, the report points out. The poverty line ranges from $11,490 for a single person to $23,550 for a family of four.
Further, black and Latino Philadelphians are twice as likely to be poor as whites. “Most distressing,” the report continues, “39 percent of Philadelphia’s children are poor.”
Poverty is a “persistent and devastating problem” in Philadelphia, and holds back many residents, Mayor Nutter said at the event. “We may never benefit from their knowledge and abilities because they will never have the chance to develop their talent,” he said.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130712_City_outlines_plan_to_deal_with_poverty.html#pqtpEKGxsieZayRO.99
Philadelphia has the highest rate of deep poverty – people with incomes below half of the poverty line – of any of the nation’s 10 most populous cities.
The annual salary for a single person at half the poverty line is around $5,700; for a family of four, it’s around $11,700.
Philadelphia’s deep-poverty rate is 12.9 percent, or around 200,000 people.
Phoenix, Chicago, and Dallas are the nearest to Philadelphia, with deep-poverty rates of more than 10 percent.
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Philadelphia County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So of course, I sat and scrolled through 39 pages to get to PA!
In my head I was expecting Fayette County or Greene County to make PA’s poorest county. Not so!
Philadelphia is a city and a county. Philadelphia is the poorest county in Pennsylvania with nearly 400,000 people (26.4 %) living at or below the poverty level.
Another list, another day!
If you feel like looking at all 50 states, click here: http://money.msn.com/family-money/the-poorest-county-in-each-state-mainstreet
Image via Wikipedia
According to statistics released from the U.S. Census Bureau, families in Pennsylvania are worse off than they were 10 years ago.
Cumberland County saw its poverty rate for families increase from 6.2 percent in 1999 to 7.8 percent.
Dauphin County saw its poverty rate for families increase from 12 percent to 20 percent!
Lebanon County saw its poverty rate for families increase from 8.9 percent to 15.2 percent.
York County saw its poverty rate for families increase from 7.1 percent to 11.4 percent
Crawford County saw its poverty rate for families increase from 16.2 percent to 20.7 percent.
Erie County saw its poverty rate rise to 17.4 percent while the City of Erie’s poverty rate increased six percent to 30.2 percent and is the second-highest poverty rate in Pennsylvania.
The City of Reading has a poverty rate of 41.3 percent and comes in at numero uno! Poverty rates for other major Pennsylvania cities are Allentown 27 percent, Philadelphia 26.7 percent, Pittsburgh 22.3 percent, 21.1 in Scranton and 20.9 in Bethlehem.
The poverty rate for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is 13.4 percent or more than 1.6 million Pennsylvanians. More than half a million people living in poverty are children under the age of 18!
These rates are higher for minority families. For example, 45 percent of blacks and Hispanic families in Erie live under the poverty level. The poverty rate is 25 percent for white residents.
The U.S.poverty rate hit a 17 year high of 15.1 percent. 46.2 million people in the United States were living below the poverty level in 2010. The federal poverty level for a family of four is a yearly income of less than $22,314.
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