You can't tell by looking at someone...

Children
Tragically, nearly 40 percent of children in Milwaukee live in poverty. From our own experience, we know that more than 60 percent of food pantry users have an average of three children at home. Seventy-seven percent of Milwaukee Public School students rely on free or reduced-price school meals for good nutrition.  At some hot meal sites, program managers report that half of their clients are children. We know that when kids are hungry, they lack the mental capacity to excel at school and their bodies lack the physical nourishment to thrive.

Seniors
Many seniors live on fixed incomes, and after paying rent/mortgage costs, medical bills and utilities, they have little money left over for food. In March of 2008, 17 percent of Wisconsin's food stamp caseload was comprised of the elderly and disabled. Thirteen percent of people 65 and older in Milwaukee are living in poverty according to the US Census Bureau.

Each month, Hunger Task Force feeds over 5,000 low-income seniors through our Stockbox program (a monthly box of healthy free food). The most recent survey of Stockbox recipients shows that 79 percent are female and are an average of 76 years old.

What is the number one reason Stockbox seniors report limited funds for buying food? Over 60 percent report that medication costs take away money that they would use to buy food.

Working Families
According to 2006 census data, 26.2 percent of Milwaukee residents and 11 percent of Wisconsin residents live in poverty.

How is it determined if a family is poor?  In 2008, the Department of Health and Human Services defined poverty on average for the following family sizes as:

• 1 person: $10,400
• 2 people: $14,000
• 3 people: $17,600
• 4 people: $21,200

Conversely, Wisconsin median household income is a healthy $47,105 per year. That means that a family of four in poverty is living on less than half the median income in Wisconsin!

What is even more surprising is that many families needing emergency food are employed.  Forty-two percent of our able-bodied food pantry clients are working, earning an average wage of $9 per hour. Unfortunately, that $9 per hour doesn't stretch far after paying housing and utility costs.  According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a Milwaukee worker would need to earn $13.58 an hour in order to afford a 2-bedroom fair-market apartment at $706 a month (and not spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing).

So, for the worker earning $9/hour, 54 percent of his or her gross wage goes directly to rent. Keep in mind that this is $2.50 more per hour than the state minimum wage of $6.50!

In addition, working women are more likely to earn lower wages.  Two out of three minimum wage Wisconsin workers are women according to a January 2005 press release from Governor Jim Doyle's office.

Unemployed
Milwaukee lost 30,000 local family-supporting manufacturing jobs between 1999 and 2003 according to research by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. Many of these jobs were replaced by lower wage service jobs, leaving a net job loss of almost 25,000.  Visit any Milwaukee-area emergency food program and you'll meet hundreds of men and women who are out of work.  Half of our meal program clients are unemployed. 

Unemployment is even worse for Wisconsin's African-American population.  In "The State of Working Wisconsin: Update 2005," Wisconsin's unemployment rate for 2004 was 5 percent; for African-Americans, the rate was almost four times higher at 16.4 percent, some of the "worst inequality in the nation."  The Milwaukee Journal reported in late 2004 that the economic depression in Milwaukee's urban core is more severe than during the Great Depression, with 59 percent of black males 16 and older not working.