Numbers Show South Carolina Still Has A Long Way To Go

The news on poverty in South Carolina isn’t good:  We’ve overtaken Mississippi.
The Great Recession has taken its toll here.  South Carolina now ranks third highest in poverty in the country, according to the detailed Current Population Survey (CPS) of the U.S. Census Bureau.  It shows some 19 percent of South Carolinians — about 874,000 people — live at or below federal poverty levels.  At the top of the list:  New Mexico (22.2 percent) and Louisiana (21.1 percent).  Mississippi tied with Texas as 7^th highest in poverty with a 17.4 percent rate.
South Carolina surged to third highest in poverty in the most recent report after the Census Bureau apparently revised how it collected data for its in-depth CPS study.  In 2010, South Carolina ranked 10^th on the report with 773,000 people living at or below the poverty level.  That’s the same rank the state had in 1980 when 534,000 people lived in poverty.
But rankings aside, the important number is that another 100,000 people were considered to be living in poverty in 2011, compared to a year earlier.  And over three decades as South Carolina’s population grew, so did the number of poor — by 340,000 individuals.
These numbers are among a series of statistics that highlight the struggles that many people living in South Carolina continue have.  As we highlight every couple of years, many South Carolinians still have significant challenges related to health care, economics, education and safety.
South Carolina has among the worst health rates for a variety of conditions:  Diabetes (3^rd highest adult rate among states), chlamydia (5^th highest), stroke (5^th highest), hypertension (7^th highest) and obesity (8^th highest).  One in 10 babies are born with low birth weights, the fourth highest rate in the country.  In 2012, KidsCount ranked the Palmetto State as the eighth worst place for kids to grow up.  None of these numbers is dramatically better — or worse — than a few years back.
In addition to having a high poverty rate, South Carolina has the fifth lowest median income, according to Census figures.  In 2011, the nation’s median average household income was just over $50,000.  But in South Carolina, the figure was 20 percent lower at $40,084 a year.
Before you get too depressed, the state’s unemployment rate has been dropping.  The rate is about to slide out of the nation’s bottom quartile. While it was among the top in the nation during the recession, it now is 12^th highest at 8 percent in April.  Our unemployment rate, which was at 5.7 percent in 2007, has dropped almost 4 full percentage points since 2010.
Other measures of economic health:  Our business climate is 22^nd best, according to a Forbes magazine study in December.  Our tax burden is 10^th lowest, according to the Tax Foundation, with 8.4 percent of income going to state and local governments.  But hunger is comparatively high with almost 19 percent of South Carolinians — 870,000 people — saying they are “food insecure,” according to Feeding America.
On education, South Carolina ranks a lot higher than many think at first blush.  According to the respected Quality County annual survey in 2013 by Education Week magazine, South Carolina ranked 26^th highest in education.  KidsCount, however, ranked the Palmetto State 11^th from the bottom on education  in its 2012 survey.  South Carolina’s on-time graduation rate is fourth from the bottom, but of the kids who graduate and attend college, we have the sixth highest rate in the country.
South Carolina also is  comparatively unsafe.  It has the third highest rate of domestic violence, is fifth highest in violent crime, has the highest rate of deadly alcohol-rated accident and has most dangerous roads, according to various sources.
The bottom line of all of these surveys and studies is that we in the Palmetto State still have a lot to do to get off the bottom lists that we shouldn’t be on.  But to do that, we need to demand more of our leaders — and ourselves — to start working on our big problems and to stop playing around the edges.
 
Andy Brack is publisher of StatehouseReport.com, which you can visit to find sources of all of the data.  He can be reached at:  brack@statehousereport.com.