The Sad Figures For Milwaukee Children In 1999
The year 1999 saw difficult times for families and especially children in Milwaukee county. With money problems troubling society at the time, many families were split between making a decision on choosing Milwaukee Chapter 7 or Milwaukee Debt Settlement plan to cope up with their bankruptcy. Despite the best attempt of employed families in the county, most of them had earnings below the poverty line. This fact is in accord with Wisconsin state tax returns. According to a census carried out that year, the calculated figure of children residing in such families was found to approach 59,100. There was another group of so called “Near poverty” families who were employed with a salary of approximately 105-185% above the recognized poverty level. The census showed that another astonishing number of 53,800 children were observed to reside in those families.
Further Studying the records, it shows another interesting discovery. In the “extreme poverty” range, the number of children of employed families was seen to fall. At the same stage this figure was increasing in the “Near Poverty” range. The decrease and increase were 3% and 6% respectively. The complication with families meeting the criteria of “Near Poverty” is that they are less likely to obtain public care for their children and avail food stamps or medical insurance, for which facilities they are highly suitable.
In 1998, income tax credits which were received by the state helped out around 52,081 families bringing 16,800 county youngsters out of the poverty range. But these claim rates declined in 1999 and eligible families with credits mounting to 5,731 dollars could not claim their share. In 1998, a heavy sum of about 27 million dollars in federal and tax credits of the state continued to be unclaimed. On the bright side, the number of working families had rose from 1993 to 1999. Unfortunately such increase did not benefit the children much and the number of children being attended properly estimated to be 28,000 lower than the number in 1993.
Families comprising only a father or a mother dominated the statistics. Their number had neared 49% of all families living in the county. Putting it in simple terms, one of every three single-parent-families in the employment range had wages below the poverty line by 185%! These grim numbers readily stand for themselves. You can imagine the kind of misery the children existing here must be going through.
There is a silver lining to each cloud. The state of Wisconsin has taken notice of such numbers and has been working to improve the lifestyle of the hard pressed children residing there. A good model to demonstrate this is the existence of three medical insurance programs available to children dwelling in families of low income. Medicaid (MA) has been made available to families qualifiying for the criteria of eligibility described in July 1996. Another program called Healthy Start, helps by providing medical insurance for the families that have expecting women or children of age 6 years. A Badger Care Program is for uninsured families failing to qualify to the above.