Poverty Rising Fast in the Suburbs
Part One of series

Compared to its neighboring counties, DuPage County's poverty rate has
exploded in the last quarter-century.

Officials say that fast rate of growth can be attributed to the County's
exponential population growth itself.

"You have to remember that during that period of time the only thing that
really happened in DuPage county was change. We really doubled in size. In
1980, we had almost no poverty, so any poverty that would come would show a great increase," DuPage County Board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom said.


The United States Census Bureau says the county's population was 658,835. In
2006, DuPage County's estimated population was 932,670

According to a 2008 report on Illinois poverty released by the Heartland
Alliance's Mid-America Institute on Poverty, twenty-eight years ago, 19,818
residents in DuPage lived at or below the poverty level. Today, there are
44,494 impoverished residents in the county.

As a proportion of county population, DuPage County's poverty rate increased
from 3 percent in 1980 to 4.9 percent today, or a 63 percent increase. (4.9
/ 3.0 = 1.63 or it increased by 1.9%. 1.9% divided by 3.0% = .63) that
number is nearly double the poverty growth rate in McHenry and Kane
counties, in which poverty increased by 38 and 36 percent, respectively.

The federal government defines income poverty by using food cost as a basis.
Each year, the federal poverty line is set, and families are considered poor
if their family income falls below the threshold for their family size.

The Illinois Poverty Summit says the 2008 Federal Poverty Guidelines are:

* Individual: $10,400
* Family of two: $14,000
* Family of three: $17,600
* Family of four: $21,200
* Family of five: $24,800


Schillerstrom says people of all income levels are drawn to DuPage because
of the economic opportunity it offers.

"There's a lot of people who come here to work. And our cost of living is
high, so sometimes when they come in the job is not adequate to provide for
them," Schillerstrom said.

With the lower income population, DuPage's large increase in the service
sector draws them in. Unfortunately, the area's low wage service jobs, which
have multiplied in the last several years, are not enough.

A recent report out by Choose DuPage, a DuPage economic development
corporation, says twenty-eight percent of all jobs in DuPage are
service-oriented, compared to 20 percent in Lake County and 14 percent in
Will County.

The growth of service jobs explains the expanding poverty rates throughout
the Chicago area. While poverty rates have remained steady in the city of
Chicago since 1980, they doubled to 9 percent in suburban Cook County and
rose from 4.7 percent to 5.9 percent in the collar counties.

"There's always a job out there, just not necessarily ones that you can live
on. If you have to work 120 hours to make ends meet, that's not
sustainable," said Ryan Dowd, Executive Director at Hessed House in Aurora.

Published annually since 2000, the poverty report provides data and analysis
on current poverty data, trends affecting the state's economic health and
potential strategies to eliminate poverty in Illinois.

The numbers are different in Will County than in DuPage and other nearby
counties where the number of residents living in poverty actually went down
by 9.4 percent from 1980 to 2006, as the population grew from 324,000 to an
estimated 668,000 residents.

However, Will County is still home to a higher percentage of impoverished
residents than is DuPage. Their poverty rate is 5.8 percent.

Naperville has one of the lowest poverty rates in the region. With 4,300
residents living in poverty, the city has a 3.1 percent poverty rate - up
from 2.2 in 2000. 1,500 more Naperville residents live in poverty now.

Read the Full Report online at heartlandalliance.org


Lindsey Theis Reports.