The top story in this morning’s Denver Post is about the jump in child poverty throughout the state of Colorado. While Governor Bill Ritter plans to release this report during a morning press conference, the Denver Post received a leaked copy of the report.
Allison Sherry, the Post reporter who authored this story, found a typical canard to shoehorn this news: low per capita spending.
Experts say there are several
reasons why Colorado could be faring worse than other parts of the country.
Among them: The state's
discretionary expenditures on services — from highways to higher education to
health care — ranks 44th nationwide. The state spends a little more than $4,000
a person, according to the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute.
New Mexico and Wyoming spend far more, $6,541 and $7,860 respectively, the report shows. Wyoming ranks second in the country, and New Mexico ranks seventh in overall per-capita spending. Both states have fewer children, as a percentage, living in poverty, and both states have improved their percentages since 2000.
This is a silly way to analyze this information (but typical of the Denver Post). Taking a quick look at the US Census figures helps to debunk this theory. The 2006 population estimate for Colorado is 4.753 million people. The estimates for New Mexico and Wyoming are 1.955 million and 0.515 million people respectively. Those two state’s populations combined are barely half of the population of Colorado!
Simple multiplication shows that “discretionary spending” is significantly higher in Colorado. Using the Post’s figures Colorado’s total discretionary spending is approximately $19.0 billion! New Mexico’s and Wyoming’s spending are approximately $12.8 billion and $4.0 billion! As an aside, Colorado’s land area is approximately 104 thousand square miles versus approximately 121 thousand square miles and 97 thousand square miles for New Mexico and Wyoming. Finally, Colorado’s 2004 median family income is $50,105 versus $37,838 and $43,785 for New Mexico and Wyoming.
All else aside, Colorado appears to spend more money than
other states of similar land area. However, these state dollars are less per capita due to the larger population with higher median
incomes.
Allison Sherry’s story continues with the following reasons
for poverty, and these seem to be more realistic than the lack of government
spending.
Other factors could include
Colorado's low graduation rate: Roughly
72 percent of the state's high school students finish. The situation often
is referred to as the "Colorado paradox" because of the higher-than-average
number of people in the state with advanced degrees.
In Jefferson County, for example,
the number of people with less than a high school degree has pushed up since
2002 to 10 percent of the population. In
Denver, only 51 percent of those in high school finish with a diploma.
Experts also point to the shifting
nature of the state's demographics. The
number of children living in single-parent families has increased 13 percent.
It will be interesting to see what demographic differences occurred between 2000 and 2006. The increase in immigrant populations and the idea of the Colorado promise brought many people to the state. However, when only 1 in 2 Denver high school students (1 of 4 high school students statewide) finish with a diploma (1 of 4 statewide), it is no wonder that so many people live below the poverty line.
The increase in single-parent households only exacerbates this problem. When marriages end, both parents and the children have severe income and emotional ramifications. From Allison Sherry’s article:
"Moms without a good education are really going to struggle, so it doesn't surprise me when there are so many single moms . . . that we're seeing more and more kids in poverty," said Honoria "Honey" Niehaus, director of Family Star, a preschool Montessori program under Early Head Start.
Ms. Niehaus should also mention single dads, who also struggle in the event of divorce. In any event, this issue is a huge public policy issue that merits larger discussion, but merely increasing funding willy-nilly will not solve the problem.
by Civil Sense
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