Statewide poverty data doesn’t tell the whole story

Local data tell a more complex and troubling story

October 2, 2005

By Ellen Shemitz
President, Children's Alliance of NH

Sometimes numbers can be misleading, and that is the case with recent use of state level census data released last week.

A Sept. 1 Union Leader editorial cited state level data on poverty and median income in support of its campaign for minimalist government. The reliance was misplaced because the data cited were incomplete.

Think about it. Do state level numbers tell you all you need to know about the New Hampshire way of life everywhere across the Granite State? Does the alarming 25 percent dropout rate in New Hampshire pose the same challenge to students in Hollis-Brookline (with the state’s lowest dropout rate of 1 percent) as it does to students in Franklin (where the dropout rate nears 50 percent)? Does the statewide rate for attracting new business with higher paying jobs offer the same opportunities in both rural and urban settings?

To really understand life in New Hampshire, we need to look beyond state level numbers. We need to look, for example, at data by state legislative district. Thanks to a new Web tool provided by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, we can do just that. And the story the data tell is far more complex and far more troubling.

Let’s take a look at the numbers in two different districts: Manchester’s Ward 3 and Londonderry. Each district has a population of about 9,000 kids. Each district is in the southern tier. The similarity ends there.

Consider the districts’ child poverty rates. Did you know that almost one out of every two kids living in Ward 3 in Manchester lives in poverty? How does life for those kids differ from life in Londonderry, where only one out of every 75 kids live, in poverty?

In Manchester, more than 77 percent of children live in high-poverty neighborhoods. Compare that to Londonderry. Not one neighborhood in that town is classified as high-poverty.

When the Union Leader claims bragging rights to the New Hampshire way of life, does it mean the way of life for children in Ward 3 and in similarly situated communities like Washington or Nashua’s Ward 4? Or does it mean the very different way of life in more prosperous communities like Londonderry, Bow, Lyme or Kingston?

It would be nice if the state level poverty rates truly did mean good living for all. But in truth, the story is more complex. The Union Leader went too far in using state level census data to validate our severely constrained state government. But it was right to set a high standard for our state. Good living for all sounds like an appropriate goal. A goal that can only be attained by a real commitment to fairness and opportunity in every legislative district in our state.