Poverty Has Far-Reaching Effect On Children Shoshone County Has State’S Highest Rate Of Kids Living In Poverty

Every day, Jim Miller Jr. hears about elementary school students whose families are being evicted, whose parents can’t pay the electric bills, who can’t afford a trip to the dentist.

Miller, the family resource social worker for several Shoshone County elementary schools, gets $9,000 a year in federal money to provide emergency help to some of those families. Under the rules, though, the money is only available to families for 90 days.

But the ripple effect of children in poverty reaches far beyond the need for government aid.

“You see behavioral issues with kids getting along with other kids, or how they’re relating to their teachers,” Miller said. “If you’re worried about being out on the street, you don’t think a lot about doing your math.”

Shoshone County has the highest rate of children living in poverty in the state, according to the 1999-2000 Idaho Kids Count report. The annual collection of data provides a county-by-county breakdown of child well-being.

More than 30 percent of Shoshone County kids live in poverty, compared with 16.5 percent statewide, according to the study, which was released this month. The data come from 1996 figures and measure the number of children living below the U.S. poverty threshold, defined as three times the amount it takes to feed a family for one year.

By comparison, about 20 percent of kids in Bonner, Benewah and Boundary counties and 15 percent in Kootenai County live in poverty, according to the report.

About 13 percent of the state’s population lives in poverty, but 40 percent of those people are children, according to Kids Count. That’s one in six Idaho children. Nationally, about 20 percent of children live in poverty, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty.

“Children living in poverty will be more vulnerable to health conditions, they’re going to be more vulnerable in school readiness, they’re going to be more vulnerable to emotional stress because of the stress on the families,” said Linda Jensen, Idaho Kids Count director.

The average family income in Shoshone County is $29,600 and more than half of all schoolchildren receive free or reduced-price lunches. The county has a higher than average rate of high school dropouts, teen violent crime arrests, teen violent deaths, and teens not working and not in school, according to the report. Of the indicators surveyed in the report, only Shoshone County’s teen birthrate is below the state average.

“We as a community, we’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Michael Smith, juvenile probation officer for Shoshone County.

Among other findings in the Kids Count report:

The percentage of babies born to mothers without adequate prenatal care increased to 30 percent statewide in 1998. Forty percent of babies born to teen mothers were without adequate prenatal care.

Infant mortality, teen births, juvenile violent crime and dropout rates continue to decline.

One-sixth of Idaho’s children are without health insurance.

Immunization rates for 2-year-olds have increased to 76 percent from 68 percent last year.

“You can go in and make a difference if there’s a coordinated effort,” Jensen said of the jump in immunization rates. “Idaho likes to do everything individually, but the way you get results is by a coordinated effort to really wrap around the problem.”

Miller, who worked in child protective services in Shoshone County for 23 years, said he doesn’t see much hope for change in the once-booming mining and timber area until more business moves in.

“We lost an incredible number of jobs here years ago, and we’re still feeling the effects of that,” Miller said. “It’s a struggle for a lot of folks.”