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Mitch Lewis:
So, what are some of the levels of poverty in this state-say along
racial, ethnic and geographic lines?
Sorien Schmidt:
Well, unfortunately, it appears that minorities and women are still
disproportionately in poverty and sort of mired there and finding
a harder time getting out of poverty. In addition, there are large
numbers of low-income people in the urban areas but much larger
proportions of the population in the rural counties are actually
poorer. So, for example, in some rural counties you could have as
much as 30-percent of the population under poverty level. In the
urban area, it might be a smaller percentage but a larger number
of individuals.
Mitch Lewis:
Just how bad is the gap in poverty-or the poverty level-between
the rich and the poor-and especially over the past few years?
Sorien Schmidt:
Well, incomes have grown at very different rates for wealthy families
in North Carolina and the poor. During the 1990's, when we had our
big economic boom, the richest North Carolinians saw over a 20 percent
increase in their income, while the bottom 20 percent of earners
saw only a two-percent increase in their income. And that was during
the boom period. Since then, the whole bottom 60 percent of earners
have actually lost everything they gained during the 90's, and only
the richest earners are still seeing increases in income. So, the
recession has really hurt the bottom 60 percent of earners-both
the middle class and the low income pretty hard-while the rich are
still getting a little better-or at least holding their own.
Mitch Lewis:
So, is the problem people don't really want to work that hard to
gain enough income?
Sorien Schmidt:
Well, actually no. We found that laziness really wasn't the driving
factor here-that a majority of the families that aren't earning
enough to live off of are actually have at least one worker in their
household-and the problem seems more related to wages are low-or
right now during a recession there aren't even enough jobs-or enough
hours they can work.
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