Georgia’s poverty rate reached its highest point since 1983 last year, according to Census Bureau figures, as stubbornly high unemployment and the housing bust strained finances.
The annual gain was slight, from 18.4 to 18.7 percent, but it translated to 1.83 million Georgians in poverty, 61,000 more than a year earlier. It also left Georgia with the third-highest rate among states.
Nationally, the poverty rate climbed more steeply, from 14.3 to 15.1 percent, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. That was the highest national rate since 1993 and put 46.2 million Americans below the poverty level.
The rate of Georgians without health insurance, 19.4 percent, also was 3 points above the national number. The state’s uninsured rate fell slightly from 2009, but only because more people found coverage through government programs. The share of Georgians who got insurance at work declined.
A life in poverty and without insurance is something new for many Georgians. Roberta Green sees that reality every day as patients come into the Good Samaritan Health Center. The charitable clinic in Atlanta will see about 25,000 patients this year -- most of them uninsured.
Many have low-wage jobs that don’t offer a health plan. Others have lost jobs and are without insurance for the first time.
“They are scared, they are desperate,” Green said. “Most of the people who come in here are very humble. They have never had to ask for anything in their life and they are not used to that. Knowing how to ask is hard for them.”
The statistics add pressure on federal and state programs to help the poor, including unemployment benefits, Section 8 housing, Medicaid and food stamps. Georgia households drawing food stamps reached 832,958 this year -- up 14 percent from 2010.
“The increase in the number of people who did not work at all (for the year) is an important factor in the increase of the poverty rate,” said Trudi Renwick, chief of the poverty statistics branch of the U.S. Census Bureau.
The federal government defines the poverty level as income of $22,314 for a family of four, and $11,139 for a single person.
The Census report also included median income data showing the gap between the rich and poor widened last year, at least by some measures.
For instance, income fell 1.2 percent to $180,810 for the top 5 percent of households. The bottom fifth of households making $20,000 or less saw incomes decline 4 percent.
The median — or midpoint — household income was $49,445, down 2.3 percent from 2009.
Mississippi had the highest share of poor people, at 22.7 percent, according to the Census Bureau. It was followed by Louisiana, the District of Columbia, Georgia, New Mexico and Arizona. New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 6.6 percent.
Georgia’s poverty rate reflects the toll of the recession in a state that had greatly depended on construction and real estate. The figure also reflects a kind of economic stagnation, as reflected in a jobless rate of around 10 percent that has barely budged in the past year, experts said.
“We have people out of work one year and two years, and some who have stopping looking for a job,” said Harvey Newman, chairman of public management and policy at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.
Many of the poor appear outwardly to be solidly middle class, with a car and a home, said Vonda Malbrough, development director at North Fulton Community Charities.
“They’re your neighbor, but then you realize their car hasn’t left the driveway for a week,” she said.
The charity has added programs to help the longterm unemployed, including counseling on how to switch careers and training to adjust to a lower income. The charity served 5,088 families in its last fiscal year, up 18 percent over the past three years, she said.
Georgia’s large population of uninsured residents -- 1.9 million -- has implications well beyond the families that lack coverage. Taxpayers face a larger burden as more people turn to Medicaid. People with insurance pay higher prices as hospitals shift the cost of caring for the uninsured onto the bills of those who can pay. Even getting care in an emergency room can take longer for everyone.
The demands extend well beyond public hospitals such as Atlanta’s Grady Memorial, well-known for providing indigent care.
At WellStar Health System, which operates five hospitals in Cobb, Paulding and Douglas counties, 9.8 percent of hospital patients lacked insurance in the 2011 fiscal year, compared with 6.7 percent in 2007. Uninsured patients accounted for about 30 percent of all emergency room visits for WellStar’s hospitals.
Jim Budzinski, WellStar’s chief financial officer, said “this rising level of unreimbursed care is straining many hospital providers’ financial stability and is of concern to us as well.”
While uninsured Georgians can use emergency rooms for medical care, other services, such as dental care, can be almost impossible to get without money or a health plan.
In 2010, Georgia saw a more pronounced version of the national trend -- increases in coverage through government plans as coverage at work declined.
“Georgia has more people at or near poverty and we have more workers who are employed at smaller firms that are less likely to offer coverage,” said Bill Custer, a Georgia State University expert on health insurance. “We also have a significant rural population, and that goes hand-in-hand with small firms and lack of coverage.”
Jerome Fletcher, 49, had insurance through a job his entire life, before he was laid off last year.
A diabetic, he’s been able to get some free insulin samples from a doctor, but a visit to Grady left him with a hefty bill for a medical work-up and the insulin he needed. Now he hopes to enroll in a program through a pharmaceutical company that will allow him to get insulin for about $35 a month.
Fletcher and his mother live in a paid-for house and eat one meal a day, he said. But for someone who worked for years in law enforcement, unemployment is uncharted territory.
“What bothers me is the fact that I can’t get a job so I can go out and support myself,” he said.
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