Two nights ago in his State of the State address to legislators Gov. Robert Bentley said this:
"Everyone in this room knows Alabama is one of the poorest states in America, where one in four children live in poverty. Nearly one million of our fellow Alabamians are dependent on Food Stamps."
Gov. Robert Bentley addressing state legislators Tuesday night
The governor went on to call the statistics of poverty sobering. And indeed they are when you begin to look at the numbers county by county. Poverty both connects and disconnects swathes of Alabamians from each other.
I thought I'd use this space today just to highlight some of what the governor was talking about when he called the statistics sobering. The data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau and Alabama Possible, a nonprofit that tracks poverty data and issues.
According to the latest available information on the subject, Alabama is the sixth poorest state in America. Nineteen percent of adults in Alabama live below the poverty line and 28 percent of children live below that same line.
But as high as those numbers are, they are a distant dream in some counties of Alabama where the poverty rate is almost double that percentage.
Cases in point, the following seven counties are the poorest in Alabama:
Wilcox, 39.9 percent; Sumter, 39.1 percent; Dallas, 35.7 percent; Greene, 35.1 percent; Perry, 33 percent; Bullock, 32.8 percent; Macon, 30.9 percent.
Said another way, almost four in 10 adults in Wilcox and Sumter counties live in poverty.
Even in the seven counties with the lowest rates of poverty, six of them have double-digit poverty rates. Those seven counties include:
Shelby, 8.1 percent; Baldwin, 13.4 percent; Elmore, 13.8 percent; Madison, 13.8 percent, Limestone, 13.9 percent; Blount, 14.9 percent; Autauga, 14.9 percent.
The state's most populous county, Jefferson, with the greatest number of jobs in the state, has a poverty rate of 18.7 percent. Mobile County, which in recent years has attracted high-profile jobs in ship building and aircraft manufacturing, still has a poverty rate of 19.7 percent. And Montgomery County, home to the state capital and government has a poverty rate of 23.2 percent.
Gov. Robert Bentley pointed out in his State of the State address Tuesday that nearly 1 million of Alabama's 4-plus million residents are dependent on food stamps.
Not surprisingly, the less education an Alabamian has the more likely they are to live in poverty. Among those with no high school diploma, almost 27 percent are living below the poverty line. Those with a high school diploma or GED have 14.6 poverty rates. Only 3.6 percent of those with college degrees are in poverty in Alabama, slightly less than the national average of 3.9 percent.
Broken down by race, 30.6 percent of blacks are in poverty, 31.2 percent of Hispanics and 12.4 percent of whites.
Politically, the poverty divide is stark. The seven counties with the highest poverty rates are all represented by Democrats, almost all of whom, with the exception of one state senator, are black.
The seven counties with the lowest poverty levels are all represented by Republicans, all of whom are white.
Bentley called the facts surrounding the state's high poverty levels "indisputable." He then added this: "Never-ending cycles of a need for jobs, better job skills and better education plague our communities, counties and state as they have for years."
Chuck Dean is connecting Alabama through the stories told by its people -- sometimes about themselves, sometimes about their neighbors, sometimes about the places they call home.
Share your stories, or introduce us to people we should connect with. Reach out on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using #connectAL, email cdean@al.com or send Chuck a note at 2201 Fourth Ave. N, Birmingham AL 35203.