About four out of every 10 children in Grundy County are officially categorized as “poor,” according to troubling data in a new report by the Annie E. Casey Kids Count project that analyzes census data from the years 2006 to 2010.
The new report comes on the heels of, and reinforces, a study released in January by the Children’s Defense Fund which showed that about a quarter of all children in the Volunteer state are poor – and that more than 11 percent live in “extreme poverty,” defined as living on $2 or less per day.
That’s roughly equal to the $185 maximum amount the report indicated a family of three can receive in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in Tennessee.
According to the Kids Count report, Tennessee’s overall child poverty rate is 24 percent, making it one of the 10 worst states for the number of children living in concentrated areas of poverty.
However, it indicated, the number of poor children in individual counties across Tennessee fluctuates wildly.
In Williamson County, just south of Nashville, the rate is 6.2 percent, compared to 30.4 percent in Dyer County in west Tennessee – and a staggering 43.9 percent in Hancock County, on the Tennessee-Virginia border in east Tennessee, it showed.
In Southeast Tennessee, the report indicates, child poverty rates commonly exceed 20 percent and – in some cases – are significantly higher.
Statistics for Hamilton and other nearby counties, which the Kids Count project based on analysis of census data, include:
* Hamilton – 24.9 percent
* Bradley – 22.7 percent
* Grundy – 39.7
* Marion – 27 percent
* Polk – 28.1 percent
* Rhea – 30 percent
* Sequatchie – 29.2 percent