More people in S.C. living in poverty areas

Even if you aren't poor, your chances of living in a poor neighborhood in South Carolina are greater than they were at the turn of the century, and by a larger margin than in all but five states, according to a U.S. Census report released Monday.

South Carolina was better than only North Carolina, Tennessee, Oregon, Arkansas and Georgia in the change in the percentage of people living in poverty-stricken areas between 2000 and 2010, according to the report. The state ranks seventh in the percentage of people living in poverty areas.

The report actually takes in data between 2008 and 2012 from the five-year American Community Survey to encompass changes since the 2010 Census, but it counts the average as a 2010 level.

Census tracts with 20 percent or more of the residents living below the federal poverty line are considered poverty areas in the report.

In 2010, as calculated by the five-year survey, 35.2 percent of South Carolinians lived in such areas, up from 20.8 percent in 2000 — an increase of 14.4 percent, according to the report.

Nationwide, more than 77 million people lived in poverty areas, it says.

The country as a whole slid in the same downward direction, although not as badly as the Palmetto State did.

The national average was 25.7 percent living in poor neighborhoods in 2010, up from 18.1 percent in 2000, an increase of 7.6 percent.

The percentages reflect the proportion of people who live in those tracts to those who live in non-poverty tracts, regardless of their income.

Because of the Great Recession, "Some people who were just barely over the poverty line when the Census was taken may have gone under it," said Beth Lindsay Templeton, who runs a poverty awareness program in Greenville called Our Eyes Were Opened.

"I would also wonder about people moving into the area, maybe immigrants," she said.

Templeton said her organization is being asked more and more to work with schools in Greenville, Pickens and Anderson counties to help teachers better understand children from economically disadvantaged homes.

"For people on the bottom end of the socioeconomic ladder, they are going to be the last ones to feel any kind of improvement in the economic situation," she said.

The report doesn't give detailed breakdowns by county, but a map included with it indicates that the percentage of people living in high-poverty neighborhoods in Greenville and Pickens counties was in the 10-24.9 percent range in 2000 and jumped into the 25-49.9 range in 2010.

North Carolina had the biggest jump among the states, 17.9 percent.

The District of Columbia and four states — Louisiana, West Virginia, Hawaii and Alaska — had decreases in the proportion of people living in poverty tracts.

"Researchers have found that living in poor neighborhoods adds burdens to low-income families, such as poor housing conditions and fewer job opportunities," said the report's author, Alemayehu Bishaw of the Census Bureau's Poverty Statistics Branch.

"Many federal and local government agencies use the Census Bureau's definition of poverty areas to provide much-needed resources to communities with a large concentration of people in poverty."

Mary Barr, a lecturer in Clemson University's College of Business and Behavioral Science, said the report shows that people don't just need jobs — they need full-time employment that pays a living wage and comes with health and retirement benefits.