According to President Barack Obama and some members of Congress, the country is in an economic recovery period following the recession.
Gauging by the increasing use at soup kitchens and food pantries throughout The Times Record’s circulation area, however, the good economic news has yet to filter down to Joe Average Citizen.
“I’ve seen a lot of folks losing jobs,” said Sue Mack of Freeport Community Services. “It was the same a couple years ago. I thought it would be temporary, but it’s not getting better.
“The middle class is slipping into poverty. A single parent may work three jobs and loses one of them and that’s the difference,” she added. “It’s a fragile network. … It’s surprising how much working poor we have around here.”
While the “good economic news” is slow to trickle down, the “news” that has gotten around, however, is that there is help to be found for those in need.
Though the needs are seemingly greater than ever before — nearly 1 in 5 Mainers is living at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level — there are many area nonprofits working hard to offer a hot meal or a box of groceries to their neighbors in need.
Most are affiliated with Good Shepherd Food Bank, a statewide food clearinghouse that provides food for pantries and soup kitchens, weekend backpack elementary school programs for at-risk youth, and in-school pantries as well as summer feeding programs and a host of other initiatives aimed at helping to alleviate food insecurity in the state.
Mainers in poverty
Officially, according to Census Bureau data and the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count project, the percentage of Mainers living in poverty has continuously inched upward, from 11 percent in 2001 to 14 percent in 2013, the last year figures are available. The figures for the U.S. as a whole are slightly worse, climbing from 12 percent to 16 percent during that same stretch.
The bright note may be that according to the 2013 Annual Income and Poverty in the United States report, released in September 2014 by the Census Bureau, “Poverty among children under age 18 fell from 21.8 percent in 2012 to 19.9 percent in 2013.” It explains that this is the first time since 2000 that the rate has declined, adding that 2013 also marked the second straight year the median income rose for families with children.
But in Maine, the picture is not so rosy. A common statistic used to determine food security has to do with the number of children who qualify for free or reduced rate meals at school. Free lunch is available for children whose families are at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty rate. Reduced lunch is for those at or below 185 percent of the poverty rate.
In 2014, the federal government pegs the poverty rate for a family of four in Maine at $23,850. Add $4,060 for each additional member of the household.
So a family of four with two children in Sagadahoc County would get free lunch if the household earned less than $31,720.50. They could earn up to $44,122.50 and still qualify for a reduced rate.
While not every child who is eligible for free lunch would be considered “food insecure” — which the U.S. Department of Agriculture defines as inconsistent access to adequate food — many who are at or below the poverty level could be at least partially insecure. Programs like the weekend BackPack food programs in several area schools and the summer feeding programs throughout the Mid-coast help add a little “security” to those children’s nutritional outlook.
School lunch indicator
The Maine Department of Education releases statistics for each school in the state. The statewide average shows 39.85 percent of all students qualify for free lunch; another 6.91 percent can get reduced rates. Overall, 46.76 percent of all students qualify for either free or reduced rate meals.
The fact that the bulk of the students qualify for free instead of reduced, just emphasizes the severity of the problem. Students aren’t “barely” qualifying, they’re qualifying by a comfortable margin, which makes those in the anti-hunger business anything but comfortable.
As of Oct. 31, 2013, of the 35 public schools in The Times Record’s circulation area, 14 had a rate higher than the state average. Two others were within 1.5 percent.
All the Lisbon schools easily topped the average, including Philip W. Sugg Middle School topping out at 57.46 percent.
In Regional School Unit 1, five of seven schools were at 45.99 percent or higher. Fisher-Mitchell Elementary School was the highest, at 70.26, with Dike-Newell right behind with 64.64 percent. (On Friday, Dec. 12, Dike-Newell became the latest Mid-coast school to begin sending “BackPacks” of weekend packages home with food-insecure students. At least a dozen other area schools have a similar program.)
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