Child poverty in Branch County worsens

LANSING (WTVB) – Most people agree children should not grow up in poverty. In Branch County, the latest available figures put the county’s poverty rate for children ages 0-17 at 24.7%. That figure from 2012 is up from 20.6% in 2006 and ranks the county at number 54 out 83 counties in Michigan. The information is contained in the Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count 2015 Data Profile. How to measure what constitutes poverty, and how to best tackle it, is the subject of a new report from the foundation. The current official measure of poverty dates back to 1960 and doesn’t take into account regional costs of living, or adjust for inflation. Jane Zehnder-Merrell with the Michigan League for Public Policy says it also doesn’t factor in safety-net programs like food and housing assistance that have improved the lives of many Michiganders, particularly during the most recent recession. She says if we didn’t have these programs in place, 30 percent of our children would live in poverty. With the kinds of programs we now have in place, she says it’s down to 15 percent in Michigan. The report recommends the use of the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which was created by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2011. Laura Speer, associate director for policy reform and advocacy with the Casey Foundation, says recalibrating the tools we use to measure poverty allows us to better target the programs and strategies we have to tackle it. While some critics of federal and state assistance programs claim they are too much of a burden on taxpayers, Zehnder-Merrell says the price tag associated with not addressing child poverty is far higher. It’s estimated that child poverty costs the U.S. about $500 billion a year in lost productivity and earnings, and health and crime-related costs.