Warning and Watch lists for Poverty in Illinois

Well since I haven't been out anywhere since Blandinsville, I should just start up research again to answer a few questions before I head out again. I heard about a poverty warning list for the state of Illinois in an article by John Pulliam.

The article was from 2006 so I wanted to find an updated version. Well according to the heartland Alliance , poverty rose in 74 of Illinois' 102 counties. Obviously more severe in certain counties but that's 72.5% of all counties in the state.

Anyways, back to the warning list. Well according to the 2008 report on Illinois Poverty, on page 34 is the following:

"Four key indicators of well-being are assessed in each of Illinois’ 102 counties — high school graduation rates, unemployment rates, teen birth rates, and poverty rates. Counties in Illinois are evaluated using a point system, with the higher number of points indicating a worse score.

A point is given to a county if its rate is higher than the state average and/or if they have worsened since the previous year. For each indicator a total of 2 points is possible and overall a total of 8 points is possible. Counties that score 4 or 5 points are placed on a Watch List and counties that score 6, 7, or 8 points are placed on a Warning List. Using this methodology, 66 Illinois counties have been placed on either the Poverty Watch or Poverty Warning lists."

So of those 66 counties, 44 of them are on the watch list while the other 22 are on the warning list. As for McDonough County, we're on the watch list. Being the county with the 5th highest poverty rate, I thought this was a little unusual. Since the factors include high school graduation rates, maybe students at Macomb do better with a University in town as well as the University library.

Also, I'd imagine the University employ's a significant amount of people in the community so that might help as well.

I'm still trying to figure out if the University has any role in keeping us off the warning list but I guess I'll find out later.

For Macomb, I'll need to get out to the Salvation Army. Been in a few times but not as a journalist. I'll try to think up a few questions and ask the owners.

Churches are another place. Being a person who isn't that familiar with the church setting, I'm not quite sure who I'd talk to (the pastor?) but whatever, I'll just ask questions and hopefully someone can help.

The Western Illinois Regional Council seems like a good choice too.

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As much as I like getting all my research done and being knowledgeable on the subject, I really want to start shooting and talking to people. Number one person to e-mail right now is the professor from Northwestern University. I'll need to look up his name again but hopefully he can give me a few pointers and things to look out for.

Also, until I start putting faces with these numbers, they're just numbers to me. The Superbowl is tomorrow and we've got production at the paper at noon so I can't do anything then but I'll need to start Monday morning and make some calls.

Well it's past 10pm on a Saturday so I'm going to call it a night.