Editor's note
Philanthropy with a focus. Frank Basile helps organize, manage, and fund the diverse branches of the performing and creative arts. A successful businessman, his talents have directed and redirected numerous organizations. Hear his story this week on the Who Gets What? podcast at mortonjohn.libsyn.com or wherever podcast are found.
Poverty is a human issue with many dimensions including race, gender, occupation, and geography. Its elimination is also multi-dimensional.

When not battling with minority members, the dominate Republicans in the Indiana House of Representatives might attend to the plight of 868,000 Hoosiers (13.4 percent) below the poverty threshold.

In the event it did not strike you, 868,000 persons in 2019 was about the same as the population of 43 Indiana counties combined.

Before we go further, consider those poverty thresholds which include numerous benefits such as Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, Social Security, pensions, etc.

For a single person, under age 65,the threshold is income of $13,064. A college student, working half-time at $12.56/hr., fits that description. Thus, Monroe and Delaware counties, with their relatively large college populations, lead the state with poverty rates in excess of 20 percent. Vigo and Tippecanoe are similarly college-impacted counties with large numbers of young, part-time workers.

Those four counties are among the top nine Indiana counties with poverty rates in excess of 17 percent. Switzerland and Crawford, in that same group, are traditional poverty locales, geographically distanced from opportunity. Fayette, Grant and Marion, also in the same group, are victims of major shifts in manufacturing.

For the household with one adult and one child, the threshold is $17,308. Two adults and two children, $25,465. How many of our state legislators can imagine living a full year, in this century, on so little income?

What is the color of poverty in Indiana? It’s White; 70 percent of all Hoosiers in poverty are White, but the poverty rate for the White population is only 11 percent.

By contrast, Blacks or African Americans are 19 percent of those in poverty while constituting just nine percent of the total population; the poverty rate for Blacks is 27 percent.

The Hispanic or Latino populations of Indiana are12 percent of those in poverty, but just seven percent of all Hoosiers, with a 22 percent poverty rate.

Importantly for Whites, Blacks and Hispanics, the poverty rate is higher in Indiana than in the nation at large. Indiana matches the national poverty rate (13.4 percent) only because our Black and Hispanic populations are a lower percent of the total than is the case nationally.

Hendricks, Hamilton and Boone counties have poverty rates at or below six percent. This trio of proximate prosperity have relatively small Black and Hispanic populations. However, in 36 of Indiana’s 92 counties, the Black poverty rate is 33 percent or higher. A 33 percent poverty rate exists in 18 counties for Hispanic populations and in 16 counties for Asian populations.

What’s to be done to eliminate poverty, not just ameliorate it? Destroy the historically accepted barriers to education, health, employment, and housing which exist for so many in this “State that Works” for so few.
Morton J. Marcus is an economist formerly with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. His column appears in Indiana newspapers, and his views can be followed his podcast.

© 2024 Morton J. Marcus

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