NEWS

35,000 Delaware children in poverty

Jen Rini
The News Journal

WILMINGTON – Nearly one in five kids in Delaware is living in poverty, and instead of decreasing, the statistics are becoming the norm.

The number of children in families on food stamps, receiving free or reduced-price lunches, and living with parents without consistent jobs has grown since the start of the 2008 recession. Officials say there are no signs the statistics will go down anytime soon.

According to a national survey by the Annie E. Casey Foundation measuring the factors that impact child well-being, 35,000 children in Delaware are living in poverty.

That is up about three percentage points – to 17 percent – from data compiled in 2005. The state data in the study is consistent with national numbers from the same time frame, up to 2012. The national average sits at 23 percent, according to the foundation's 2014 Kids Count study unveiled Tuesday.

The 2014 Kids Count profile centers on economic well-being, education, health and family, and community.

Though the amount of children in poverty in Delaware was below the national average, the state's rate signaled warning bells for families failing to make ends meet.

Among those is Andrea Rendon, 22, who waited patiently Tuesday at the West End Neighborhood House with her son, Javier, and niece Lety, while her sister-in-law received a consultation about the Women, Infants and Children federal nutrition supplement program.

Rendon is a single mom originally from Utah who moved to Wilmington five months ago. She's out of work and wants to receive her Graduate Equivalency Diploma, but said it's difficult to find a program that works for her. Rendon said it's inevitable she will have to move back to Utah with her son to be closer to family.

"It's hard," she said, looking at her son.

Officials say earning a GED or high school diploma can open the door for people looking to escape from poverty.

That's doubly true in the highly competitive job market that exists given the slow rate of Delaware' economic recovery post-recession. That has been a driving factor in the rise of child poverty, said Elaine Archangelo, director of the state's Division of Social Services.

"I do think the economy is improving, but I think we've lost a lot of high-wage and moderate-wage jobs, and the growth in the economy is with lower-paying jobs," Archangelo said.

In Delaware, a family of four at the federal poverty threshold has income of $23,850. The poverty threshold for an individual is $11,670.The poverty threshold for a one-parent, two-child family was $18,498.

The profile also reports that 65,000 children have parents who lack secure employment (32 percent), and 76,000 households with kids are feeling the burden of high housing costs (37 percent). Additionally, 75,000 children (40 percent) live in single-parent households.

All those factors are related, said Janice Barlow, director of Kids Count in Delaware, and show the lingering effects of the 2008 recession. And children, as a population, have not been able to fully recover.

"It affects health, education; it affects safety," Barlow said. "Everything can be linked back to poverty."

Patterns in a parent's work life can grossly affect a child, Archeangelo said. A job change could require a change in school, child care and, if the change affects income, lifestyle.

"It has a traumatic effect on children. Stability is very important," she said.

George Sharpley, a state Labor Department economist, said the number of individuals unemployed but looking for work averaged 25,516 through the first six months of 2014. That's a 41 percent increase from 2008, when the number was 18,780.

Sharpley said the number of part-time workers increased only slightly from 91,300 in 2008 to 94,700 in 2014. But the number of individuals working part-time jobs but seeking full-time work made up 22 percent of all part-time workers in 2014.

"Things actually have been improving. They just got so bad it's going to take a long process of improvement to get back before the recession," he said.

In the 2012-2013 school year, 64,000 kids received free or reduced-price lunch, from kindergarten through high school, Archangelo said. Of the more than 150,000 households receiving food stamp recipients, 45 percent had children.

She said the state saw growth in the food stamp program, known as SNAP, three years ago, but now things have stabilized. She's quick to note, however, that officials do not expect the numbers to fall.

"The purpose of SNAP is not to cut you off when you go to work," she said, adding that other support programs such as Medicaid also assist families in meeting the needs of children.

"You have to stack them on one another to help move people out of poverty," she said.

In her eight years with the West End Neighborhood House in Wilmington, Yvette Young, program manager, has seen many kids come hungry to the organization's summer camp. They are asking for second and third helpings instinctively. Between 70 and 80 percent of families enrolling children in the camp pay for the program with subsidies.

"That's a telltale sign," Young said, of the rate of poverty in the area.

West End is one of the many organizations throughout the state that try to curb poverty and lingering social issues. The organization also offers information on housing loans, GED classes and WIC programs.

"I think what we need to do is look for strategies that improve the economics of our families across the board. We as a state are struggling with high unemployment and having difficulty matching job skills to jobs for people," said Leslie Newman, chief executive officer of Children and Families First, a nonprofit in Wilmington.

Job training is also a tool to help people become economically self-sufficient, which is of the utmost importance, she said.

"The idea is not to have people working in the fast food industry, or at part-time jobs. That really can't get a family out of poverty," Newman said. "I think that we have a tremendous dropout problem. I think that we are working hard to keep them in school; we have to work harder."

"We owe it to ourselves, to our children and to future generations to be better than that," Newman added.

Until then, the social services programs provide a lifeline for people like Tracy Torres.

Two-year-old Mahlaynie Torres eats a pretzel while waiting with her mother, Tracy Torres, of Elsmere, who was getting baby formula assistance for her week-old daughter at the Delaware WIC Program on Tuesday.

Torres, 26, wants a healthy future for her three young daughters Mahlaynie, 2, Nealise, 1, and Arabella, only one week old. The Elsmere resident and teacher is used to multi-tasking, but money can really get in the way.

She visited the WIC service station at West End Tuesday to get money for formula. Her husband is on disability and she's on maternity leave, so money is tight.

"Without [those services] I'd be trying to find $20 for a can of formula," she said. "Without them, I probably wouldn't make it."

Jen Rini can be reached at 302-324-2386 or jrini@delawareonline.com. Follow @JenRini on Twitter.