Kansas City, MO –
The number of children living in poverty in Missouri and Kansas rose dramatically between 2008 and last year. Using numbers compiled by the census bureau, The Social Impact Research Bureau in Chicago calculated that one in every five children in Missouri lives in poverty.
In Kansas it was 17 percent of the child population.
The agency says 381 thousand people in Missouri are in extreme poverty. That's a family of four earning less than $11 thousand a year.
Doug Schenkelberg is a policy analyst with the agency and views the statistics with some dismay---"these numbers really kind of give people a jolt, to recognize how hard it is for a number of individuals, for such a large number of individuals, particularly when you look at extreme poverty."
The data shows median household income in Missouri last year was $45 thousand, $15 hundred lower than the year before. 15 percent of residents of Missouri or Kansas had no health insurance.