By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

Recent stories from National Public Radio and the Associated Press address the growing number of working-class people feeding themselves at food banks, soup kitchens and shelters.

Apparently, such places aren’t just for the homeless and jobless anymore.

A national survey conducted by America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s largest network of food banks, soup kitchens and shelters, found that 36% of the people getting food from these facilities come from households in which at least one person had a job.

Last year, America’s Second Harvest fed more than 25 million Americans. That figure is up 9% from 2001, the organization reports.

Here in the Lowcountry, between September and the end of February, Crisis Ministries’ soup kitchen nearly doubled the number of its daily lunches, from 100 to 196, with a “good portion” of those lunches served to working people, according to Crisis Ministries’ community relations director Missy Barnes.

Some working people not only eat at Crisis Ministries, they also live there. “We have a higher percentage of working people than many people think,” Barnes said.

This should disturb everyone. If people cannot afford food and shelter despite being employed, something is wrong.

Here is some of what America’s Second Harvest found from its national survey of 52,000 people who used food banks, soup kitchens and shelters last year. The surveys were conducted before hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

• 68% had incomes below the federal poverty level, which is $1,613 a month for a family of four in the 48 contiguous states. (In Hawaii, the poverty level is $1,855 a month, and in Alaska, it’s $2,016 a month.)

• 42% had to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel; 35% had to choose between paying for food and paying for rent or mortgage; 32% had to choose between food and medical care.

• 36% were children under the age of 18; 8% were children 5 years old and under.

• 10% were elderly.

• 40% were white, 38% black and 17% Hispanic.

• 12% were homeless.

Generally, the Lowcountry’s economy is healthier than elsewhere in the nation, as our colossal housing boom and heavier roadway traffic indicate. It’s certainly not soup kitchens luring folks down here in droves.

Yet while more people are coming here to enjoy our economic health, some people—our existing working poor—are falling through the cracks, finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

The problem of the working poor points to a larger, national problem: Wages continue to lag behind the cost of living. The most startling example of this is California, where only 14% of that state’s population can afford to buy a home. As of January, the median price of a California home was $458,000.

In the Charleston-North Charleston area, houses are selling for an average of about $282,650, according to the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors. Carolinas Real Data, which keeps real estate statistics on North and South Carolina, tells us the average rent for a Charleston apartment is $713 a month.

However, the median household income in Charleston County is $34,900, according to the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce Center for Business Research. Generally, such an income makes buying a home in Charleston County a bit of challenge, although more than a few folks seem to be managing.

I don’t know the median household income for the county’s working poor, but obviously it doesn’t remotely approach the $35,000 mark.

To their credit, the Lowcountry’s economic development leaders have been trying to raise regional per capita income by attracting high-paying, knowledge-based jobs.

But somehow we have to raise the wages of the jobs already here.

A good start might be to lavish as much attention on small businesses—they employ most of us, by the way—as we do the big ones we try to lure here.

If we can come up with tax breaks and other goodies that help lower costs for small businesses, maybe those businesses will be able to pay their workers a little more and keep some of them out of the soup line.

Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.

SUBSCRIBE | REPRINTS | CONTACT US

Phone: 843-849-3100    Fax: 843-849-3122