By Andy Brack
A recent report on child poverty in South Carolina showed the rate dropped slightly – from 20% of the state’s children in poverty in 2019 to 19% two years ago. On its face, that sounds promising.
But storm clouds are on the horizon with tight-fisted federal fiscal policies from a Trump administration that seems to want to make the rich richer at the expense of the poor and middle class.
Threatened are the very kinds of government programs that reduced child poverty from about one in three kids two decades ago to one in five now – food stamps, special tax credits for the working poor, housing subsidies and the dread of the Republican Party – Obamacare.
If federal safety net programs are cut in South Carolina – and all over the country – tougher, hungrier days are ahead for too many families. The new KidsCount report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found 215,000 children under 18 are in poverty in the Palmetto State. The study found South Carolina ranked 38th in child well-being, a slight improvement over previous years.
“With too many children lacking health insurance and too many living in areas of concentrated poverty, children and their families are vulnerable in our state,” said Sue Williams, CEO of Children’s Trust of South Carolina, in a statement earlier this month.
During the Obama administration, there was a big statistical drop in what was considered the number of children in poverty because analysts reframed how they measured it. As highlighted in a 2015 Statehouse Report column, the feds implemented the new measure to more accurately reflect reality of the safety net – but all of this came with a caveat:
“The lower number, it seems, reflects the impact of state and federal intervention programs on the poverty rate. In other words, it shows that programs like food stamps, housing assistance, the federal Earned Income Tax Credit for working families and other social interventions are working. Without them, the true child poverty rate would be about one in three kids [in South Carolina] — approximately the same level as has been reported for years.
“‘Tax credits alone have decreased the child poverty rate by nearly one-third. Social Security, SNAP (food stamps) and housing subsidies also have contributed to significantly fewer children living in poverty,’” the report said.
What brought all of this on is that the standard, outdated Federal Poverty Level (FPL) used for years as a basis for distributing aid came under fire when conservatives complained that the nation’s 50-year battle with poverty had done little to cut the poverty rate. So in 2011, the Obama administration set out to measure the impact of assistance programs on people receiving help. This new measure, called the Supplemental Poverty Measure, found that aid programs really do make life better for people — not by giving them cell phones or microwaves, but by providing help with housing or food or credits for working.
But then as now, what all of this means is that today’s policymakers need to understand that what’s slowly working – the intervention programs – don’t need to be cut. In fact, child poverty likely would be reduced more if the state would expand Medicaid, build more affordable housing and boost nutrition programs.
The clear warning here is that if the Trump administration cuts safety net programs that impact more than 200,000 children in South Carolina, more will go hungry and live in poverty.
Fighting poverty in America isn’t easy. And to implement policies that will encourage it to expand would be fiscally and morally wrong.
Policy actions have impacts. Let’s not go down any path that cuts the safety net more. Investments in anti-poverty programs are smart over the long run, not a waste of taxpayer money like some of the talking heads claim.
If you can’t get past the notion of keeping and expanding anti-poverty programs based on your checkbook, take a look at the good book and see what it might suggest.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of the Charleston City Paper and Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send it to feedback@statehousereport.com.
