Chris Tomlinson, Associated Press
AUSTIN, Texas — State leaders like to brag about Texas’ fast growing economy and low unemployment, but rarely do they mention the high poverty rate and so far they don’t appear inclined to pass any new laws to deal with it.
The unemployment rate and the creation of new jobs are the statistics most often cited by Gov. Rick Perry to brag on Texas, and unemployment is among the lowest in the country at 6.2 percent. That’s well below the national average of 7.7 percent.
Perry also uses the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Emerging Technology Funds to encourage employers to relocate to Texas and create new jobs in the state, adding hundreds of jobs every year. Employment, though, is not the only measure of economic prosperity. There is the question of quality of life.
The number of Texans living in poverty rose for a third consecutive year in 2011, adding more than 214,000 people to total 4.6 million. That’s 18.5 percent of the population, 3 percent higher than the nation as a whole, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By comparison, New Hampshire had the lowest proportion of people living in poverty, with 8.8 percent, and Mississippi the highest, 22.6 percent.
The metropolitan areas in the United States with the first and third highest proportions of poor people are in Texas, with McAllen-Edinburgh at 37.7 percent and El Paso at 24.7 percent. These are two of the fastest-growing parts of Texas, and places where Republicans need to do better to hold onto power in the future.
While the poverty rate did rise with the Great Recession, Texas weathered the downturn better than most states and ranked high in poverty even in the best economic times. In 2007, the poverty rate was 16.5 percent, the second highest in the nation that year. Since 2000, the rate has consistently been above 15 percent, and 4 percent higher than the national average.
The two biggest predictors of poverty are poor education and chronic health problems. Only about 80 percent of Texans have a high school diploma, the second lowest in the country, and Texas has the highest number of uninsured citizens.
(Read more of this story at Chron.com)
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