MEETING BASIC NEEDS A TOP PRIORITY

What does it take to cure poverty in the Cape Girardeau area and the nation? Housing and jobs, according to a poverty seminar hosted by the East Missouri Action Agency Inc. at the Show Me Center last month.

Twelve of the 43 Cape Girardeau citizens polled said the top priority for ending poverty was to increase the "percentage of citizens who have their basic needs met with adequate clothing, food and shelter."

In addition, 25 of those polled said increasing the number "of full-time jobs with wages adequate to support the individual and offering health insurance and other benefits," was either a top or a second priority.

This compares favorably with the same poll conducted in Park Hills in which that issue was heavily favored as the top priority, and the most selected second priority as well.

Both the Cape Girardeau and the Park Hills polls were similar in the options most selected.

Both polls listed the "basic needs" and the "full-time jobs" priorities as either first or second in importance. Plus both groups said increasing the "percentage of citizens who have adequate health insurance coverage" was near the top in significance.

An area that the groups differed slightly was the emphasis placed on education. Twenty of the 73 Park Hills' residents polled said increasing the "number of persons who complete special technical training, college or other post-secondary education," was important. That priority only received nine votes in Cape Girardeau.

The seminar asked the participants to number, by order of importance, a list of options that could be used to end poverty. The list was broken down into categories such as housing, health, income, education, family development, crime, citizenship and anti-discrimination and the participants would list their selections as either first, second or third priority.

EMAA is working with the National Association of Community Action Agencies in an effort to discover how Americans who are either impoverished or work with the poor would end poverty. The information collected from a series of workshops similar to the one at the Show Me Center will be compiled and presented to national policy makers.

Juan Williams, a reporter for the Washington Post who represented the NACAA by video tape, detailed the seminar and described the procedure those at the meeting would take in completing the survey.

"I believe the need for this community conversation is critical for two reasons: First, although politicians have been talking a lot about what to do to remedy poverty, their debate has not consistently drawn on the experiences of people who care about poverty, people who work with the poor and people who are poor," Williams said. "Second, it is very important to say straight out that not only low income people feel the impact of poverty -- everyone in the community feels it because poverty is closely linked to so many other issues, including education, jobs, housing, crime, welfare, strong families and drug abuse."

EMAA also dispersed a package of information about county trends in poverty. Cape Girardeau County has had seven poverty-related areas change for the better, and three change for the worse. For details see accompanying graph.

Cape Girardeau County ranks 17th overall, according to EMAA, with child population rising (14,629 in 1990 to 15,571 in 1994), working women with youngest child under age 6 (56 percent in 1980 to 68 percent in 1990), children in poverty (11.1 percent in 1980 to 14.2 percent in 1990), children in single parent families (11.9 percent in 1980 to 16.6 percent in 1990), median family household income ($34,248 in 1989 to $33,948 in 1994), annual wage/salary pay ($16,989 in 1990 to $19,084 in 1993), adult unemployment (5.2 percent in 1990 to 4 percent in 1994), parents paying child support in state system (47.6 percent in 1990 to 39.9 percent in 1994), children receiving food stamps (20.5 percent in 1990 to 21.8 percent in 1994) and children enrolled in Medicaid (14.9 percent in 1992 to 18.1 percent in 1994).

According to the United States Bureau of the Census, October 1995, the average American income was 6.3 percent lower in 1994 than in 1989, the income for the top 5 percent of households fore in 1994 by more than $7,000 while income for the bottom 20 percent dropped by 7.5 percent, in 1994 14.5 percent of Americans lived in poverty -- which translates to 38 million citizens including 15.3 million children. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services classifies a family of four earning less than $15,600 a year as living in poverty.