A student reacts to the Housing Choice Voucher Program

This is one of very few student reaction papers that discusses the housing choice voucer program.

The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program was initially started to get low income families out of impoverished areas and into better areas and into better schools.  The program goes by a fair market rent.  That is, a family is to pay no more than 30% of their income in rent and the voucher will cover the rest of the cost.  The fair market rent is evaluated every year by HUD.  The voucher program serves about five million families and that is only about 25% of eligible families.  The Housing Choice Voucher Program is failing because the idea that it was built around is seemingly not working like they hoped that it would.  

When a person is lucky enough to get off of the long waitlist that the program has, they then in turn have to find a landlord that is willing to accept the voucher.  Just because a person gets on the program does not guarantee housing or guarantee that the landlord will accept the voucher, and this ability of landlords to refuse to participate keeps families in impoverished areas.  Landlords do not want the hassle of having the inspections the voucher program requires.  The voucher program has been given a bad name because of the costly repairs that the landlords have to make after a tenant has moved out.

  And yet some landlords in these impoverished areas seek out to rent to families with the Section 8 voucher.  The rent of someone with the voucher is a more reliable source of rent than someone that is not on the program.  A lot of families will stay in these areas because it is familiar areas for them and they will often take the first place that will rent to them given they are given a time limit to find a place to live or they will lose the voucher.  

The idea behind the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program is a good one.  It however cannot guarantee that a family will be able to move out of impoverished areas in hope for a better opportunity at living and schools.  It can however guarantee housing for families that are eligible.

Let us examine some of the principles of providing housing subsidies:

1) People have a human right to have a home, and homelessness is a violation of human rights.

2) Housing prices are often so high that people who work cannot afford housing; and many people are unable to work, so they obviously cannot afford housing.

3) There is no policy that forces the government to provide housing.  The government can screen who receives housing vouchers, and can take away housing vouchers if a recipient breaks program rules.

4) Landlords own the properties they would rent to tenants, and have a right to screen possible tenants and refuse to rent their properties to persons who are likely to damage the properties, annoy or threaten other neighboring tenants, or fail to pay for rent or utilities.

5) Landlords have a right to discriminate about whom they accept as tenants based on evidence related to problems, but they must not discriminate based on things like race, family composition, and that sort of thing.

6) There is an inadequate supply of housing vouchers and public housing.

7) Many renters who receive housing vouchers become problem tenants, and there is a perception among landlords that those who have vouchers may be more likely to cause problems.  Many other persons who use housing vouchers are excellent tenants, and some landlords are willing to say that they have noticed no higher level of problems with housing voucher recipients compared to those who rent without public assistance from housing vouchers.

8) Some landlords like the housing voucher program, and are glad to work with HUD and receive the rents; other landlords dislike the housing voucher program, and are unwilling to accept tenants with housing vouchers.

Solutions that seem plausible:  

1) HUD ought to do a better job of screening who can receive housing vouchers, and ought to ensure that tenants are good tenants; this could change the reputation of the program, so that more landlords would be willing to participate.

2) HUD ought to do a better job of working with landlords to solve problems when a landlord claims that a housing voucher tenant has become a problem tenant. 

3) There ought to be more funding for housing choice vouchers so that fewer people are on the waiting list and more people are housed.

4) Persons who are accused of being problem tenants ought to be given a chance to defend themselves, but if it turns out that a landlord is correct, and a housing voucher recipient has a record of damaging landlord properties in an egregious way, such voucher recipients ought to lose their housing vouchers, and some alternative form of housing provision ought to be available so that these persons avoid homelessness, but also the landlords are protected so no one will rent to them again.

Section 8 Housing

Section 8 Housing

Section 8 housing is a federal program that provides affordable housing to those with low income. There is a selection process involved that determines one’s own and, if applicable, family’s gross income. Should one meet the criteria for Section Eight housing, a local housing authority will try to find a place in the limited sections that best fit their needs. However, there is a waiting list that is further exacerbated by the limited resources available to the HUD and local housing agencies.  

I became curious of what it was like to talk to people about applying for housing and the process involved. I found an apartment complex out in Athens, Illinois. There I called the number I found associated with that place and after a brief discussion I was given another number to call. I also had to ask for a specific person in regards to this phone call. So, I called the number and asked for this person. I was met by shifty voice that just said “I’m sorry, ill connect you to them.” I can assume quite accurately that this person took pity on me, which got my blood pressure going. Now, I didn’t need the housing, this was just a curiosity. But to speak down to to someone, is not right. 

What came next was the application itself I received in the mail. This application is pretty daunting and requires numerous details about one’s specific history. Which is fair, considering the nature of this program. What can be bad is that they have a zero drug policy and if one is caught selling, using, or distributing you will be evicted. What happens if a person just has a momentary relapse, which is expected of recovering addicts, and now they are back on the street? That is not conducive to a just society to push them back towards drugs by taking away their home.    

Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8) and public housing both try to assure communities that the residents will be law-abiding and upstanding citizens.  Also, rules try to protect residents so they will not live in a community where addictive substances are widely used and available. For these reasons, which seem logical enough to me, people who use public housing or housing assistance must submit to some tough restrictions on their use of illegal mind-and-mood-altering substances. On the other hand, just as you point out, the penalty of removing someone from their home and taking away their housing assistance seems too harsh, and possibly a violation of human rights.  A referral to treatment seems a better solution than immediate eviction. 

Paid Family and Medical Leave

This student thinks we need a paid medical leave law for employees to receive income on days they take off from work to care for their children.

In today’s society, there are many reasons that families need time off from work. For my reflection essay, I will be discussing the policy on paid family and medical leave. This policy effects many people because things happen in people’s lives every day that could hinder them from going to work, however, the United States does not have guarantee pay for leave. Therefore, many people are upset and fighting for a change in the healthcare act- Family Medical and Leave act - that only allows certain individuals leave with pay. This topic relates to the course because social workers have the opportunity to help advocate for families who have to take time off work for medical issues or domestic family issues. Social workers can also help because if the act never gets approved than the social worker can try to help the employer and client work some type of agreement out.

I believe that the current FMLA act only helps the wealthy companies because they are the ones who can afford to pay those extra expenses. The current act, in truth, only affects the low-income families who cannot afford to miss a day of work to go to a doctor’s appointment because they live paycheck to paycheck and need the money. Therefore, this policy should be changed to benefit more than just the high paying companies because the families who work in the companies who do not provide pay for leave are the ones who actually need it.

Source: Findlay, Steve. "Paid Family and Medical Leave." Health Policy Briefs. N.p., 21 Nov. 2016. Web. 7 Feb. 2017.

The problem of paid family leave and medical leave is one where there are some conflicting values. Adults in a society have an economic role, and usually they are selling their time and labor to an employer, who then has some power over the employee during times when the employer is paying for the employee’s work.  Adults also have other valuable roles, and we usually don’t pay them for these other roles.  In a democracy, citizens should be good citizens, and that implies they need time to keep informed of local, state, and national issues.  They need time to engage in debate in the public sphere, attend meetings of interest groups or community groups, and they need time to vote or campaign for candidates and issues that they believe are important and good for society.  Much of this citizenship activity is something they do on their own time, but there may sometimes be conflicts between the labor hours they are selling and the hours they need to work in their “jobs” as citizens.  

People also have duties to their community: they should maintain the properties they rent, and maintain and improve the property they own. They may need to take care of neighbors or attend community events, use parks and libraries, patronize theaters and concerts, attend festivals and sporting events. They ought to do some of these things in the company of friends or neighbors.  Doing these things maintains the quality of the community.  Again, like the citizenship tasks, these community member tasks are mostly done on a person’s own time, but conflicts might arise with the time an employer claims.  

Finally, many people serve society by reproducing labor (having or adopting or fostering children, and helping them to grow into responsible independent adults who will also be good employers or employees, good citizens, and good community members.  This task of reproducing labor is one that most directly causes conflicts with economic life, because children may need attention and aid at times when workers would normally be working for their employers. While most parenting can occur outside of the time a worker has sold to their employer, there are special occasions (such as injuries and illnesses, educational opportunities and cultural enrichment events) where parents may find their obligations to serve society by rearing their children (reproducing labor) conflict with their contractual obligations to their employer (to provide labor in exchange for their pay).  There are also sometimes duties children may have to parents that also conflict in this way, and since our society recognizes a sacred moral obligation of children toward their parents, there are times when caregiving duties to parents will also intrude on the economic relationships a person has with their employer.

The Family Medical Leave Act solves this problem of potential conflicts between filial obligations and obligations to an employer by promising people that they may suspend their work for their employer to work instead in the unpaid ways parents and children of elderly adults sometimes do, to care for those children or adults. But, the Family Medical Leave Act does not demand that anyone pay the person who suspends their relationship with their employer.  Society doesn’t take on the burden by paying the employer or absent employee some sort of compensation for the interruption to the provision of labor and compensation.  Society also doesn’t demand that the employer provide income while the worker is taking time away from economic life to tend to family obligations. 

If wages were generally adequate to cover the cost of reproduction of labor, workers could set aside a reasonable amount of savings to cover the loss of income during the inevitable days that income is lost when they take a leave to tend to sick children or incapacitated parents. However, for many people, wages are insufficient, and no savings are accumulated for this contingency, or for any other sudden financial strain.  Also, some families are afflicted with exceptionally long and costly disruptions to health, as when a child develops cancer and may need to remain in treatment for months or years, or when an elderly sibling or parent becomes so incapacitated that they require nearly constant support and aid.  Even if workers have set aside sufficient resources to normal life events such as occasional mild injuries or passing illnesses, these sort of catastrophic problems will interrupt income and security so much that bankruptcy could result, or at best, a family might need to sell its assets, exhaust its savings, and cut consumption to subsistence levels.

It seems wrong to demand of employers that they take all the responsibility for all the risk that their workers may face such demands outside of work.  This seems a very high burden for small business employers who may have very narrow profit margins.  It also seems unreasonable to put the entire burden on the workers.  The most equitable solution probably involves some mix of risk sharing in which workers and their employers both contribute to a fund to pay for their paid days away from their employers while they care for others, and everyone joins in paying a very small tax (contributing a modest premium) to a general social insurance scheme that protects employers and employees from the rare catastrophic health problems. 

If paid family leave is mandated, employers can simply set aside a percentage of a worker’s pay into an account that will be used to pay employees when they miss work for reasons allowed with a paid medical leave law.  If the worker never uses sick days or family care days, the money can be returned to the worker with interest. If a worker must leave the workplace for much longer than usual, some general social insurance scheme might provide income for a longer period of time such as a year or two.  

Student considers farm policies in social welfare

This student reacted to the film we watched in class: The River (1937), and reflected on the situation on farms and in farming communities of Central Illinois today.

Looking at the Farming Administration and watching the River documentary, and considering the requirements as they were for farmers for that time (1937) to now, it seems to me the farming industry hasn’t changed too much.  We still produce corn, wheat, beans, and hay for feeding the animals and we raise: cows, sheep and pigs, at least in our area.  When, The River was filmed, way back in 1937, they even irrigated.  We still do today as well.  They system is different, but with our technology we still irrigate. If you were born rich, your acreage keeps growing and your banking account does too.  If you’re not well-off, and if you don’t have acreage like the big farmers do, you struggle to stay alive or you get out farming. It’s the same way today.

My husband’s family were big into farming.  We paid our bills each month, and took out loans to get a bigger supply of tractors and combines.  We got more and more farm ground.  We were lucky.  Some other farmers were barely staying alive, with no new tractors and combines; they were selling off pieces of their farm ground.  You could see them— how they lost a piece of themselves each time they had to do that.  The same situation was shown with The River, people worked hard and their kids were dirty.  Those of us today who work in agriculture know this. Especially looking back at what we have been through, it seems it is often the case, that the farmers worked like dogs and the woman stayed at home.  The farmer’s wives took care of the home front, fed them meals, as well as cooking and cleaning and you needed to feed our “man” while he was in the field.  We still do that today.  I’m not sure if everyone does that but in our little town, we do and we feed them at noon, everyday.

Grant Wood’s Dinner for Threshers (1934) 

We also get money for NOT planting the soil, like we saw in The River.  USDA pays us and sometimes plant alfalfa or not disrupt the plants and animals that to preserve the animals and plants that live there.  Robert Frank, who guest-blogged on the PBS Newsdesk, stated, 

Paying farmers not to grow crops was a substitute for agricultural price support programs designed to ensure that farmers could always sell their crops for enough to support themselves. The price support program meant that farmers had to incur the expense of plowing their fields, fertilizing, irrigating, spraying, and harvesting them, and then selling their crops to the government, which stored them in silos until they either rotted or were consumed by rodents. It was much cheaper just to pay farmers not to grow the crops in the first place.

You mention the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays some farmers a rent for not growing crops on land that could help protect the environment if it was used for something else. You also refer to various policies and laws that attempt to maintain the sustainability of farming in the United States. This aspect of the federal social welfare policies that aim to prop up the economies of rural areas and ensure that America produces an abundance of food usually gets overlooked. In fact, since many of these policies are in the Department of Agriculture, and are described as part of “farm policy” and people are generally biased to think of welfare policies as “urban policies,” many textbooks of social welfare policy do not give any attention to agriculture policy, aside from the children’s food programs and SNAP and WIC.  

The division between successful farmers and failing farmers does seem mostly attributable to access to capital investment. If you already have money, and you are free from debt, you can acquire more land, take advantage of economies of scale, invest in bigger and better machinery, and increase your yields.  If you have a small farm, and you cannot get money to enlarge or purchase the better equipment, you must find some other way to make a success of your operation.  Niche farming might work for some, but that also requires a development of a market for specialized crops.  Direct marketing to consumers also can make smaller farms economically viable, but generally you need to be able to deliver your crops to a large concentrated mass of consumers, or bring your produce to farmers’s markets where the volume of sales will make the effort worthwhile.  In San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle a farmer can sell $2,000 of produce on a single day at a farmers’ market (if the weather is good and the produce is of high quality and priced right), but I doubt any of the farmers at the Springfield farmers’ markets can sell more than $600 in a day. 

The film The River described the people of the Mississippi Delta as ill-fed, ill-housed, and ill-clad.  I believe conditions have considerably improved since the 1930s.  Indoor plumbing and electricity, nearly universal within twenty years of the making of that film, have made a large difference.  Food benefits for the poor have also helped. But rural areas today, especially in the areas along the Mississippi River as it stretches south from Illinois, are terrible. 

SNAP benefits reduce hunger, but what about cash assistance?

Student considers the problem that SNAP does not give poor people cash they may need for expenses outside of food.

I have decided to write my first reaction paper about the social welfare polity SNAP. It’s been talked about quite a bit lately in class and it has also been brought up in our book “$2 a Day”. Personally, I think that SNAP is a good thing, and it significantly helps out families in need. Without it, we would have many more hungry families and children. People who qualify for SNAP can use their access cash on rent or clothes, rather than on food. When used correctly and efficiently, SNAP can help provide food for those who are struggling. 

I do though still question a few things with SNAP. I hear a lot of people talk about how hard it is to qualify for the benefits. There are pretty strict guidelines that have to be met before an individual will receive the card. I do realize that there needs to be a minimum income that one needs to make in order to qualify, but if that minimum is too low, those who are just barely making more than that will not receive the SNAP. They are still struggling to feed their family, clothe their family, pay rent and bills, find day care, and get too and from work…that is if they have a job. I feel like more than income and mouths fed should be looked into. Possibly if they are getting any other government assistance, or if they have supportive family members. 

One thing that has really caught my attention lately about SNAP are the consequences that come with people trading SNAP money for real cash. Why is it so illegal with such terrible punishments for someone who gets caught trying to obtain cash in exchange for groceries? I read that the penalty is up to $250,000 or 20 years in prison or both for someone who is convicted of committing this act. Who exactly will be helped by these punishments? From what dark soul comes the morality that would impose such a penalty for this particular crime? Do we actually expect the people who are already qualifying for government assistance and are begging for cash to be able to pay $250,000? Okay, so they can’t pay the money, but putting them in jail for up to twenty years isn’t a reasonable punishment, either. 

Chances are, being put in jail could be some of the best living arrangements some people have seen in a long time. They will have a constant roof over their head, food every day, a bed to sleep in, people to interact with, and even cable TV to watch! Also, what will happen to kids who parents are put in jail? Will they be put into DCFS custody? If so, they are back under the care of the government, which is exactly what SNAP was going to do in the first place. Even with these warnings of trading SNAP, people will find ways to rig the system. It’s not like these people are wanting to break the law, they are just trying to survive. Yes, SNAP will help them survive…to an extent. SNAP will only help pay for food, but what about all of the other expenses of living? By trading $100 in groceries for $60 in cash, there will be an extra $60 in the pocket. Cash equals flexibility, which equals the option to buy clothes for interviews, transportation to jobs, water for showers, or to pay rent. 

Could there be an option to split SNAP benefits onto the card and also cash in hand? I realize that TANF is another option that someone can qualify for, and that is also cash assistance, but if a person is trying to trade SNAP for cash, they may not quality for the TANF option, making them try to find other ways to get cash. So, is there a way that those who get SNAP can get some of that paid in cash? For example, if a mom gets $500 in SNAP could she have the option for receiving $100 in cash and $400 on the SNAP card? This way, she is still being forced to use $400 dollars on groceries, the main purpose of SNAP, but still have $100 to use on other expenses to keep her family as healthy as possible. Some may argue that the $100 will be wasted on something useless, but if someone is struggling enough to ask for help then chances are they are not going to blow it. The people who NEED the assistance will not abuse it.

I do not think there are many persons who would choose incarceration over living freely in poverty while homeless and hungry, but I agree that there must be a few.  But jails are not a reasonable place to put such persons: we must have places that ensure people are protected from the weather and given reasonable meals so that everyone can live in dignity: it is a violation of human rights to allow people to remain homeless.

For cash assistance, we have TANF, but that provides little, and is difficult to get.  In Illinois a township may give some General Relief cash assistance, but that is also not for everyone, and is extremely modest.  The Earned Income Tax Credit offers cash to people, but you must be employed to receive it.  If you have poor and have hardly any assets, and you are disabled, then you may qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which is more generous than TANF anyway, but is only for persons with serious disabilities that prevent them from working. Those are the main sources of cash assistance.  We are a bit better in giving people Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits, since it would be especially mortifying if Americans were literally starving, and the agricultural industry profits by the extra demand for their products.  I agree that we face a problem when people only have food assistance, but don’t receive any cash assistance.  

Providing a guaranteed minimum income to everyone would solve this problem. 

Student reflects on anecdotes from $ a Day

I chose to write a reaction to the book “$2.00 A Day, Living On Almost Nothing in America.” This book was written by Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer. Instead of focusing on all of the characters in the book I would like to react to specific events described in the book that I find myself thinking about over and over again. One of those events occurred in the first chapter titled “Welfare is Dead.” In this chapter a young woman named Madonna and her teenage daughter Brianna are standing in line waiting to apply for welfare. Madonna is a single parent who has been staying in different shelters along the North Side of Chicago. Madonna had been convinced to go to the welfare office by a friend. Madonna got to the welfare office hours before opening because she wanted to be seen as early as possible. There was a long line outside of the welfare office before Madonna arrived. When the building opened and Madonna had made it through the line to be seen by a case worker, she was told that there had been enough people for the day and that she should come back early the next day. 

This part of the book was significant to me because I know of people who have waited and who have been applying for welfare but are constantly denied, and some do not have the chance to be seen by a case worker. This particular event relates to topics discussed in class because during class; we’ve discussed the process of applying for welfare benefits such as SNAP and Section 8. I feel that this part of the book corresponds to some of the struggles people still face today. In class one of the other students admitted to have been applying for welfare benefits, but she had been constantly denied, even though she works a minimum wage job and is a single parent. 

Another event in the book that was significant to me what the third chapter. Jennifer was a single mom with two and was also living in a shelter. Jennifer has been living in different shelters across Chicago for several months. After living in so many shelters, Jennifer was not able to keep coming back to live in shelters because she was there for too long. To me it seemed as if she had over-stayed her welcome at the shelters. This was absolutely unacceptable to me because she is homeless. Where else did they expect her to go? After reading this book, I do understand that the authors were bringing people’s attention the poor; however, I feel as if writing about the poor and the history of welfare will not make life any easier for families such as the ones in the book. 

I am glad you were also touched by stories in this book.  The stories about poverty in Illinois always seem to come back into my thought, since these persons described in the book may practically be neighbors; I may walk past them when I am in Chicago. We always have a few students in class who are from Chicago, and they sometimes know the places and situations described in the book. 

Many scholars—perhaps especially in our field of social work—hope that their research and publications will become influential and make a difference.  Edin has already been extremely influential, as her 1997 book (Making Ends Meet, co-authored with Laura Lein) was read by everyone who studies poverty. It helped reduce the idea that poor women who received welfare had been lazy or passive, as Edin described just how hard women had to work to survive when the welfare benefits they received were insufficient to sustain life.  Back in the 1980s and 1990s part of American political culture and debate was a position that people on welfare were generally lazy, and they remained at home collecting benefits, isolated from mainstream values because they could live well on the welfare benefits they received.  After that book came out and was widely read, fewer of the intellectuals and scholars who sell their services to conservatives were willing to characterize the poor that way, because Edin had demonstrated that such an image of the poor was pure fantasy. Most people today understand more realistically how difficult life is for the poor, and this improved understanding enables these people to defend their minds against the lies and false characterizations of “the poor” offered in films, television, and political debates. At least this happens to some degree.  There has not been a total victory yet.

Other authors and scholars such as Mark Rank, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Elijah Anderson (just to name a few) wrote similar influential books raising awareness of how poor Americans were actually living.  They followed in the tradition of Michael Harrington, Jacob Riis, Jack London, John Steinbeck, Douglas Massey, Jonathan Kozol, and Studs Terkel, who created works of fiction or non-fiction that let America understand the problems of poverty.  By helping Americans understand poverty, these authors outraged the moral conscience of some readers.  Some of those readers were in government, or were going into government.  And so, these descriptive works have shaped how people think about poverty, how people advocate for policy, and how people implement policy.  You and tens of thousands of other persons have read $2 a Day, and most of you are now more likely to agree that we have a moral imperative to provide stable housing to poor persons.  You probably join thousands of other readers in understanding that in many cases the poor would be very glad to work, and are capable of working, but they must have stability in their housing and job opportunities.  When you see politicians with good ideas about ending homelessness or keeping the unemployment rate down below 3%, you can guess that they have read $2 a Day, or someone who advocated with them has read it, or someone who works on their staff has read it, and these people have all been influenced by the stories of Madonna and Jennifer, just as you were. 

Strong endorsement of $2 a Day

This student reflects on what $2.00 a Day explained about people trying to stay alive when they are desperately poor.  

$2.00 a Day has been the most exciting textbook I have ever read in all my years of schooling. Never would I have imagined that an assigned reading could be so enjoyable. This book really touched a nerve in me and I found myself relating to several of the characters in the book. I most closely related to the story of Tabitha and her small town Delta community. 

As I was reading about the Delta I found myself picturing my own small, hometown of Carthage, IL. Although Carthage itself as the county seat is by no means as poor, and devastated by poverty as the Delta many of the small villages that outline Carthage are filled with broken down homes and poor, lower class families live desolated lives. The part in the book where it described the local bar ran by Mr. and Mrs. Salvatore reminded me exactly of the Pink Tavern in one of the small villages near me. 

In class we briefly touched on the morals of the kinds of people who hang around places like these local bars. We talked about the morals of the women who sell themselves in order to pay their own bills. All of this is something that my own community struggles with. It is easy for people to judge them and say I would never do that but nobody really knows what they would do in order to survive until they are in that position. 

In the case of Tabitha and her gym teacher she knew it was wrong to trade sexual favors for food; however, the pros outweighed the cons. Tabitha is not a bad person, she is just a victim of her environment.  I cannot even begin to imagine living the life that Tabitha does. She is an inspiration to not only her brothers and sisters but to anyone who falls into hard times. Her perseverance is contagious. 

I also applaud the creativity of Martha who lives in the Delta and runs a little store out of her home. She manages to scrape by a living by using whatever means possible to her. Some people would say she handles her poverty better than Tabitha did because she has managed to stay out of other men’s beds but even Martha is living off the shadow economy.  

Just like in the Delta there are areas where I am from that live off the shadow economy. People who do odd jobs for cash such as working on cars or catering meals. Those who supply certain “delicacies” like drugs and alcohol to minors or those who have no means of getting it themselves.  This kind of economy floods rural areas where people feel so far from the rest of society that they have to make up their own. It is sad to witness, but it would be far worse to witness people dying because of their poverty. 

Hancock County is a low-cost low-wage sort of place.  In 2015 the median income was $48,213 in Hancock County compared to $59,590 for the state of Illinois, but the high incomes are mostly earned in Cook County and the Collar Counties, so for downstate Illinois the household income wasn’t especially low.  The child poverty rate in 2015 was 19%, about the same as Illinois, but the overall poverty rate of 12.7% was actually lower than the state average of 13.6%. The number of persons in poverty was estimated as 2,319 (all this information is mostly from Census data collected by the Heartland Alliance).  I’ve visited your county to see the historical site at Nauvoo and the Mississippi River Sand Hills, but I can’t remember ever passing through Carthage. Let’s compare your hometown and county with Bolivar County, a similar county along the same Mississippi River, located down in Mississippi, (Bolivar County has about 34,000 residents while your Hancock County has slightly less than 19,000, so it’s a much larger, although both counties are small and rural, and neither has any Interstate Freeway passing through). 

Bolivar County is proud of having 3,000 jobs in manufacturing and 25 manufacturing industries located in the county, but people aren’t getting paid much.  In 2015 the median household income was $27,585 in Bolivar County compared to $39,665 for the state of Mississippi, so it is a place of poverty and low wages, remarkable for deprivation that is relatively extreme even for Mississippi.  The child poverty rate in 2015 was 26% for children under 12 years old, but only 12% for children 12 to 17. The overall poverty rate of 37.1% was higher than the Mississippi state average of 22%. The binge drinking rates for males in 2012 were about 22.6%, unremarkable for Mississippi.  Life expectancy for males at birth was only 67.4 years (!), and that is low—very low. 

From now on, when you see statistics like these, you know that they will imply that people like Tabitha and Martha (from Two Dollars A Day) must be enduring those sorts of life situations. You’ve seen the poverty in your own community, and Carthage, Illinois is fairly average for the United States.