New Interactive Map Shows 2009 Poverty Rates by Congressional District

The Half in Ten campaign has developed a new interactive tool that will help advocates, elected officials, and policymakers get a clearer picture of how increasing poverty rates are affecting constituents.

The online tool allows users to view the Census Bureau’s 2009 poverty data by congressional district, and then breaks it down by gender and race. The tool, for example, shows Michigan’s 13th congressional district as having an overall poverty rate in 2009 of 31.9 percent and a child poverty rate of 43.4 percent; poverty rates for women, African Americans, and Latinos were 33.16 percent, 39.28 percent, and 30.08 percent respectively.

Nationally, the latest data from the Census Bureau showed 43.6 million people (14.3 percent) in the U.S. living in poverty in 2009, up from 39.8 million (13.2 percent) in 2008. The number of children living in poverty increased by 1.4 million to 15.5 million in 2009 or 20.7 percent, up from 19.0 percent in 2008.

Unfortunately, rising poverty rates are not unexpected in the midst of the current economic downturn. The question now is what elected officials and policymakers are going to do in response. The Half in Ten campaign is currently calling on Congress to keep in place 2009 reforms of the earned income and child tax credits. If Congress fails to act, a parent who makes the minimum wage will lose nearly $1,500 in tax credits.

Half in Ten is a collaborative anti-poverty campaign led by The Leadership Conference, the Center for American Progress, and the Coalition on Human Needs dedicated to cutting poverty in half in 10 years.