Poverty in South Dakota
by Sara on July 1st, 2009
The Argus Leader today included an article which states that one in six children living in South Dakota are poverty-stricken, according to the state’s poverty line figures.
I spent the fall of 2008 studying poverty in the Twin Cities, and as South Dakota is second in the highest number of children in poverty, Minnesota is first.
The article discusses the “cliff effect,” or what David Hage calls in his book Reforming Welfare by Rewarding Work, “the slope,” a theory which states that as welfare recipients obtain jobs, they lose their eligibility to continue to receive welfare benefits and support, therefore inhibiting their ability to provide for their families. That’s why the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) was so influential in its early stages, because welfare support was not taken away from those individuals and families who obtained full-time employment; it was increased.
I could talk forever about poverty in Minnesota, because I’ve spent the last year of my life studying and writing about it. But what about poverty in our own backyard?
Read the full text of the article here.
-Sara