- One in four local kids in poverty, report says, By Nikki Buskey, December 8, 2009, Thibodaux Daily Comet: “One of every four children in Lafourche and Terrebonne lives in poverty, a new report shows. That’s 5,223 children, or 24 percent, in Lafourche. In Terrebonne, it’s 6,934, or 25 percent. The federal standard for poverty is an annual income of $20,650 for a family of four. The number of children living in poverty locally is just below the state average, according to the 2009 Kids Count report, produced by Agenda for Children, a Louisiana advocacy group. Statewide, 27 percent of children, or 285,425 kids, are living in poverty. The child-poverty rate in Louisiana is twice as high as the elderly poverty rate, which is 13 percent…”
- Poverty in three parishes severe, By Stephen Largen, December 5, 2009, Monroe News Star: “Northeastern Louisiana’s Delta is home to three of the top 25 parishes or counties in the United States with the highest rate of children whose families have incomes below the federal poverty threshold, according to a report released this week. Morehouse Parish (51 percent of children in poverty), Tensas Parish (50 percent of children in poverty) and East Carroll Parish (56 percent of children in poverty), labeled by Newsweek in 1994 as ‘The Poorest Place in America,’ all earned the dubious distinction in the 2009 Kids Count Data Book on Louisiana’s Children, produced by Agenda for Children. East Carroll Parish has not shed that label in the intervening years: according to the report, East Carroll has a higher percentage of its residents on welfare than any county or parish in the United States. The report is based on 2007 data from state agencies and the U.S. Census Bureau…”
IRP Poverty Dispatch
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty
