A Sorrowful Start for the Kids of Milwaukee County

The year 1999 saw difficult times for families and especially children in Milwaukee county. With money problems plaguing society at the time, many families were split between making a decision on choosing Milwaukee Chapter 7 or Milwaukee Debt Settlement plan to cope up with their financial problems. Despite the best attempt of employed families in the county, most of them had earnings under the poverty line. This fact is in accord with Wisconsin state tax returns. According to a census carried out that year, the calculated figure of children living in such families was found to approach 59,100. There existed another group of so called “Near poverty” families who were employed with a salary of approximately 105-185% above the recognized poverty level. The census revealed that another startling figure of 53,800 children were found to live in those families.

Further Studying the records, it reveals another interesting discovery. In the “extreme poverty” range, the number of children of employed families was seen to decline. At the similar stage this figure was rising in the “Near Poverty” range. The decline and increase were 3% and 6% respectively. The problem with families meeting the criteria of “Near Poverty” is that they are less likely to obtain public care for their children and avail food stamps or medical insurance, for which facilities they are highly eligible.

In 1998, income tax credits which were earned by the state helped out around 52,081 families taking 16,800 county youngsters out of the poverty spectrum. But these declare rates declined in 1999 and eligible families with credits approaching 5,731 dollars failed to claim their share. In 1998, a heavy figure of about 27 million dollars in federal and tax credits of the state remained unclaimed. On the bright side, the number of working families had increased from 1993 to 1999. Unfortunately such increase did not benefit the kids much and the figure of kids being served properly estimated to be 28,000 lower than the number in 1993.

Families consisting of only a single parent dominated the statistics. Their number had neared 49% of all families living in the county. Putting it in simple terms, one of every three single-parent-families in the employment range had earnings below the poverty line by 185%! These grim numbers readily stand for themselves. You can suppose the kind of misery the children living in this county must be coming across.

There is a silver lining to each cloud. The state of Wisconsin has focused of such figures and has been striving to improve the lifestyle of the hard pressed kids living there. A good model to demonstrate this is the existence of three medical insurance schedules accessible to children dwelling in families of low earning. Medicaid (MA) has been made accessible to families qualifiying for the criteria of eligibility described in July 1996. Another program called Healthy Start, helps by supplying medical insurance for the families that have pregnant women or children aged 6 years. A Badger Care Program is for uninsured families failing to meet the criteria of the above.

Connor R. Sullivan recently researched Milwaukee chapter 7 files for an article he is writing on the subject. He checked the Milwaukee debt settlement records for his sister.

Published by: Connor Sullivan on March 28th, 2010 | Filed under Legal



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