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Mitch Lewis:
Now, in the North Carolina 20/20 report-the number one goal in the
area of 'Healthy Children/Healthy Families' is to reduce poverty.
Now poverty has such a strong impact in the state and it also affects
other areas. So, I want to mention a few areas-and I want to get
your response as to the impact to those areas. How does poverty
affect, say health care and abuse?
Sorien Schmidt:
Well, poverty has an enormous impact on health care because one
of-clearly families who don't have health insurance have a hard
time getting the ongoing care that they need to prevent bigger problems.
So what happens is that they don't deal with the small health problem
until it becomes an emergency-and they have to go to an emergency
room-and then it is a greater cost to both them personally and to
the whole health care system. In terms of abuse and neglect, you
have a clear correlation over many recessions that as more families
are losing their employment-or are working at less than full time
employment and earning lower wages-that abuse rates go up-because
the stress in the family of course is enormous to the point where
they can't earn enough to live on.
There's a big gap between low income families' ability
to maintain assets and get assets at all-and wealthier families'
ability to save, obviously. And this means that when an emergency
comes-like a health problem or a job loss-the lower income families
aren't able to take care of it as well without help from outside
the family. Certainly, one of the quickest signs we saw of the recession
in North Carolina was that state revenues went down. And what that
has meant is that just as needs are growing among the population,
as they are being laid off of their jobs-the state coffers are shrinking
and less able to cover those needs. And so, when you have this sort
of economy that is struggling with a decline-we're struggling in
textile furniture manufacturing and wages-it means that the whole
state is less prepared to deal with the issue and move forward.
Mitch Lewis:
Now as someone who has had extensive-well, you've done extensive
research in the area of poverty-what recommendations do you have
in order for North Carolina to greatly reduce poverty-not only by
the year 2020-but immediately-or over a period of time?
Sorien Schmidt:
Well the good news, I think, is that we do know a lot of things
that we can do to help families while they're struggling right now
in this recession-and also to try to turn this thing around for
the future. So for example, we know families are struggling now
and we need to continue to provide some basic services for them.
Unemployment insurance-we need to make sure that it is sound and
adequate and getting to everybody who needs it. Healthcare insurance
help-such as the Health Choice program for children-or Medicaid
are critical to maintain. Childcare subsidies are another great
area that is really helping families that may be struggling in the
recession. In addition, though, clearly the state needs to be more
proactive in looking at what do we want our workforce and our economy
and our job market to look like in the future. And so, I think more
study in the area of workforce development-and coordinating that
with economic development-is essential. And we're on the beginning
steps of doing that and we really need some leadership to move that
forward-and get that done.
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