Report shows child-poverty rate highest in Delaware County

The number of children living in poverty in Delaware County increased by 30 percent between 2008 and 2012, according to a new report.

Around 21,000 children 17 and under were living in poverty in the county in 2012, according to the report by Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY), a youth advocacy and research nonprofit in Philadelphia.

That's a county child-poverty rate of 16.7 percent, PCCY reported.

According to the agency's calculations, the Delaware County child-poverty rate is the highest among the four Pennsylvania suburban counties, PCCY officials said at a news conference in the food pantry at the Bernardine Center in Chester on Monday. PCCY will release childhood poverty numbers for the other counties later.

The PCCY study, called "The Bottom Line Is Children: Economic and Food Security in Delaware County," is based on data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS).

In Philadelphia, the child-poverty rate in 2012 was 36.8 percent, an Inquirer analysis of ACS figures showed. Camden County recorded the highest child-poverty rate in South Jersey in 2012, 19.8 percent, the newspaper's calculations showed.

"A growing number of parents all across Delaware County are having trouble putting food on the table for their children," said Kathy Fisher, family economic security director for PCCY.

About 16 percent of Delaware County children live in families that experience hunger, the report showed. And the number of children in the county receiving food-stamp benefits increased by 31 percent between fiscal 2009-10 and 2012-13, according to the report.

The report also showed that of the children living in poverty in Delaware County in 2012, 47 percent lived in families at half the poverty line, also known as deep poverty.

As an example, families of three making $19,530 a year or less are living in poverty; those in deep poverty are taking in $9,765 or less annually.

"The cycle of poverty just gets deeper and deeper," said Sister Sandra Lyons, director of the Bernardine Center.

She added that since federal food-stamp benefits were cut by $5 billion across the nation beginning Nov. 1, the center has received an increased number of calls from people needing emergency food help.

Overall, noted Donna Cooper, executive director of PCCY, "more and more people are entering poverty."

The PCCY report bears that out.

"The middle class is shrinking, recovery from the recession has been slow and uneven, and jobs that provide family-sustaining wages are difficult to find as the cost of living continues to rise," according to the report.

The best way to feed people facing hunger in these hard times, Cooper said, "is to get them jobs."

The PCCY report also showed that Delaware County recorded a 20 percent increase in the number of students eligible for free and reduced-price meals at school between 2008 and 2012.

While times are tough all over, a theory has surfaced that poverty in Delaware County is attributable to low-income Philadelphians migrating into already-poor communities, said Alan Edelstein, executive director of Family and Community Service of Delaware County.

The PCCY report concluded that it is critical that county officials, working with social-service agencies and community groups, help connect families to the food-stamp program, and increase efforts to advise people about income and work supports such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit.

"Now, more than ever, it is important for county leaders to do everything they can so children don't go hungry in Delaware County," Fisher said.

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