Poverty in McDonough County

Got started with my idependent study on Poverty in Illinois on Saturday. It's actually for my Advanced Visual Journalism Independent Study I made up but I've got a ton of research to do and don't really even know where to get started.

As for now, I think I'll just start e-mailing people that know something about the subject to try to get started. After typing this, I want to head over to the east side of town. I guess you could call it the less affluent side of town. As for Macomb in general, I don't think the poverty rate is that high compared to other towns in McDonough but it could be that I just don't see them. Being in poverty doesn't necessaraly mean you have to be sitting out on a street corner begging for money.

I guess I might as well add some notes while I type like:

-McDonough County, located in central Illinois has the 5th highest poverty rate out of the 102 Illinois Counties as of 2007.

-The majority of families living in poverty involve a single mother

- My question right now is what towns are in McDonough County and what are the povery rates of each.

Well according to: http://www.outfitters.com/illinois/mcdonough/communities.html, the towns are:

(first number- % below poverty as of 2007, second # is % below 50% of poverty level as of 2007) from http://www.city-data.com/

Macomb - County Seat 32 17.3 or 29.1 and 16.7 on main page
Adair N/A
Bardolph 28.8 15
Blandinsville 9.9 3.8
Bushnell 19.2 7.3
Colchester 8.6 1.4
Colmar N/A
Fandon - Capitol of Forgottonia
Good Hope 11.1 4.6
Industry 15.6 5.4
New Philadelphia N/A
Prairie City 26.1 6.5
Sciota 4.4 4.4
Tennessee 22.3 11.5
Walnut Grove N/A

but according to: http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/localList.php?local=6413&locTGroup=Communities&direction=down&sec=0&qty=29&stateName= , all the communities are:

Bardolph (village)
Bethel (township) 22.2 0.7
Blandinsville (township)
Blandinsville (village)
Bushnell (city)
Bushnell (township)
Chalmers (township)
Colchester (city)
Colchester (township)
Eldorado (township) ??
Emmet (township) 3.1 2.4
Good Hope (village)
Hire (township)
Industry (township)
Industry (village)
Lamoine (township) 0 0
Macomb (city)
Macomb (township)
Macomb City (township)
Mound (township)
New Salem (township) Pike County
Prairie City (township)26.1 6.5
Prairie City (village)
Sciota (township) 4.4 4.4
Sciota (village)
Scotland (township) 8.0 6.2
Tennessee (township)
Tennessee (village)
Walnut Grove (township)

Now my question is what income qualifies as the poverty rate now?

So according to the 2008 Federal Poverty Guidelines, Family Size 1- $10,400, 2- $14,000, 3- $17,600, 4- $21,200. I got this info off a power point at: http://www.dupageworkforceboard.com/downloads/2008_Report_on_IL_pov_dupage.ppt

Plus the current poverty rate for the state is 12.3%. I'll need to check all these numbers. Plus, from 1999 to 2006, the midwest had the highest rise in poverty in all regions as well as having 10 of the top 20 poorest cities in the country. Plus I read this earlier but need to back it up but IL has the worst budget defecit in the country.

Well I've got a few more things to do here in the library, then I'm out to the east side and back to the Rec to work out.