FRANKFORT, Ky. - Kentucky continues to have one of the highest poverty rates in the nation, showing only slight improvement in 2015. New Census Bureau figures show 18.5 percent of Kentuckians lived in poverty last year, down six-tenths of a percent from 2014, but still higher than just before the recession hit.

Jason Bailey, the executive director for the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, said there's a lot of work left to do to address the core challenges of poverty.

"We need to be raising the minimum wage, so families have more to live on," he said. "We need to be making college more affordable, so folks can get the credentials they need to move up. We need to be investing in Eastern Kentucky more at the federal level, so that that region can transition to new opportunities."

Kentucky's poverty rate is even worse among children and African Americans. The Census Bureau estimates one-fourth of children (25.5%) live in poverty and nearly a third (30.8%) of the state's black population.

Adrienne Bush, executive director of Community Ministries is on the front lines in Hazard, where her group provides child care and other services. She said while improvements have been made to address childhood poverty and expand child-care assistance, it's still hard to "move the needle."

"There is reason for optimism, because we are doing some really cool things in Kentucky, but at the same time, we are under-investing in these programs that we know work," she said.

Danielle Bozarth is the programs director with God's Pantry, which distributes food to the hungry in 50 eastern and central Kentucky counties. She said they see firsthand the cycle of generational poverty.

"Things definitely haven't gotten slower in regards to feeding people," she said. "Children and seniors are the two most vulnerable."

On the positive side, Bailey said the census numbers show wages are growing and unemployment is going down as median household incomes in Kentucky rose by over $2,000 last year. But there's still a "regional divide."

"The more urban parts of the state, their economies have recovered, they're growing quickly, wages are growing, folks are better off; in the more rural parts of the state, there's been job loss and nothing has come in to replace those jobs," Bailey said.

The report also found Kentucky is one of eight states where income inequality increased last year.


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On the heels of a regional conference, multiple groups are working on new solutions for reducing the poverty gap in Minnesota.

Nonprofits, government leaders and people who've seen poverty firsthand gathered last week in Duluth to get a deeper sense of the connection between poverty and race in Minnesota, and discuss how to overcome long-standing disparities.

Bill Grant, executive director of the Minnesota Community Action Partnership, which hosted the event, said one observation is assistance programs are often run by people who have never experienced poverty. He added public perception is still a problem.

"We also need to challenge the belief that poverty is inescapable," Grant asserted. "We need to get over the belief that there will always be a percentage of the population that chooses to live in poverty."

While overall poverty has declined in the U.S., a recent Partnership report noted the Minnesota rates for Black residents and Native American populations are 20% or higher, well above the state level of 8.7%.

Grant noted one solution discussed was pardon reform, in hopes of making it easier for someone with a past conviction to escape the poverty cycle with a new job and housing.

John Doan, vice president of operations and equity for Trellis, a group providing support services for people as they age, said income disparities are especially felt among older Minnesotans of color.

He stressed it is a myth programs like Social Security and Medicare give seniors everything they need, and depending on your ZIP code, your advanced years are likely to be even more difficult.

"Access to education, access to healthy food sources, access to jobs; all of those things play into account," Doan outlined. "Because if you think about [being] older and poor, it's an accumulation of lots of years of life experience and of life circumstances."

Doan's group is part of a coalition which will soon ask state lawmakers to boost funding for basic services for older Minnesotans, to make sure economic prosperity is evenly shared.

"For example, we know that there's a huge shortage in funding for senior meals, as well as for assisted transportation," Doan noted.

On the heels of a promising poverty report, there are renewed calls to make permanent certain pandemic policies that helped struggling families in Minnesota and around the country.

Last week, an annual Census Bureau report showed that child poverty fell sharply last year to a record low of 5.2%.

Arloc Sherman, vice president for data analysis and research with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that was largely fueled by the temporary expansion of the federal Child Tax Credit.

He noted that other census information revealed monthly payments from the credit helped eligible households meet basic needs.

"The families were saying, 'We're spending this money to buy food, we're spending it to pay the rent, we're buying books for our children's school,'" said Sherman.

But the expanded credit expired, and Sherman predicted that an uptick in poverty this year if Congress doesn't revisit the issue.

In Minnesota, the Children's Defense Fund urges the Legislature to use surplus money to create a separate state Child Tax Credit. Opponents, including GOP lawmakers, say expanding government spending long-term will contribute to more inflation woes, hurting family budgets.

But Sherman argued that global supply-chain issues and other factors are playing a role in the current inflation problem. And he said if future investments are geared more for low-income families, rather than the large pandemic relief bills, they shouldn't register negative economic waves.

Instead, he said it would help the country down the road.

"The good news is that now we've shown we actually know how to reduce that kind of poverty and poverty-related stress," said Sherman.

He said moving forward with this blueprint will result in better outcomes for kids, building on some of the progress that was seen even prior to the pandemic.

In Congress, lawmakers who support reviving the Child Tax Credit are looking for new opportunities to negotiate, including pending changes to certain business tax breaks.

More than 1.4 million people in the Buckeye State live in poverty, according to the 2022 State of Poverty in Ohio report.

The Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies' annual report showed the state's poverty rate of 12.7% is slightly higher than the national rate of 11.9%. And while both rates have fallen in the past several years, the gap between them has widened.

Phil Cole, executive director of the Association of Community Action Agencies, explained at a Tuesday news conference other measures are even more concerning, including episodic poverty, or people living in poverty for at least two consecutive months over a two-year period. He said it describes about one in four Ohioans.

"The episodic rate captures the many people who filter in and out of poverty much better than the overall annual poverty rate," Cole asserted. "More people are poor than the poverty rate said. Poor, but not below the federal poverty line."

The Federal Poverty Level for a single household is $13,950 annually; for a family of four, it's about $27,000.

The report examined how employment, child care, student-loan debt, and affordable housing all intersect to affect economic security.

Tina Kassebaum, partner and principal investigator for the Strategic Research Group, noted the pandemic and its related effects fell disproportionately on low-income Ohioans.

"Poverty is almost never the result of a singular issue," Kassebaum observed. "While many of these are issues Ohioans were facing before the pandemic, they have become much more complicated and difficult in the past few years."

However, Cole pointed out there is reason for optimism. He stressed with the arrival of the microchip industry, Ohio could be on the cusp of doing something truly significant for lower-income workers and the state overall.

"This is the 21st century economics, as the DeWine administration has said," Cole remarked. "We need to make sure that those opportunities are spread throughout Ohio and to all income groups. If that happens we can see real improvement for our citizens as well as our economy."

Intel broke ground on a $20 billion semiconductor facility near Columbus last week, and announced a nearly $18 million investment in job-training programs.