Molly Messick was StateImpact Idaho's broadcast reporter until May 2013. Prior to joining StateImpact and Boise State Public Radio, she was a reporter and host for Wyoming Public Radio. She is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Over the last week, we’ve used new data from the U.S. Census Bureau to check some of Idaho’s vital signs. We’ve looked at change in median income, the poverty rate, and food stamp use, as well as what Idahoans do for work.
What emerges is a picture of struggle in the state. Median household income has dropped, while the poverty rate and food stamp use have climbed year after year since 2007.
How do Idahoans spend their workaday lives? Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week offer one answer.
This is what working Idahoans did at work — broadly speaking, anyway — in 2011.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
The construction sector has shifted in the opposite direction over the same time period, shrinking from 10.1 percent of employment to just 6.6.
The U.S. Census Bureau released its 2011 American Community Survey results last week. We’re breaking out the findings in a series of posts here on the StateImpact site.
Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images
An eviction notice hung in the window of a home Glendale, California last month.
The historic $25 billion national mortgage settlement reached in February could result in direct payments to more than 12,200 Idaho borrowers. That’s how many Idahoans are eligible to share in nearly $10 million in direct payments from Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial.
The borrowers were on the receiving end of “loan servicing errors” that may have led them to lose their homes to foreclosure between 2008 and 2011, the Idaho Office of the Attorney General says.
Idaho’s total share of the mortgage settlement is just under $114 million. The nearly $10 million that will be distributed directly to borrowers is part of that total amount. Continue Reading
Last year, 13.5 percent of Idahoans received food stamps, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That works out to about 214,000 people. It’s an increase from 2010, when 12.5 percent of Idahoans were enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
In fact, as shown in the graph below, Idaho’s rate of food stamp use has risen year after year since 2007, when it was 6.2 percent.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Idaho’s poverty rate continued its upward climb in 2011, rising to 16.5 percent. That’s higher than the national rate of people living in poverty, which grew to 15.9 percent.
Put another way, more than 255,000 Idahoans lived below the federal poverty guideline last year.
The state’s poverty rate has climbed each year since 2007, when 12.1 percent of state residents lived below the poverty line. While the rate grew by 1.4 percent from 2008 to 2009 and again from 2009 to 2010, it grew by less than a percentage point from 2010 to 2011.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
John Moore / Getty Images
Workers lined up at a job fair in June.
At first glance, it’s good news. Idaho’s unemployment rate ticked down yet another tenth of a percentage point in August, falling to a three-year low of 7.4 percent. That’s better than the national rate of 8.1.
But, like the nation as a whole, Idaho is now facing an unhappy trend: its labor force is also shrinking.
According to the state Department of Labor, there were 2,600 fewer people in the Idaho labor force in August as compared to July. In other words, the unemployment rate isn’t falling because that many more people have jobs. It’s falling because people have given up looking. Continue Reading
Molly Messick / StateImpact Idaho
The wind farm on Edith and Richard Kopp's land was completed last year.
If you look at a map of where wind development has taken off in Idaho, you’ll notice an area near American Falls. There, in the rolling agricultural land of southeast Idaho, Edith Kopp stands on a high hillside. She gazes out with satisfaction at more than a dozen turbines, turning steadily.
“This is a pretty constant wind,” she says. “They’re all going!”
Census data released today paint a picture of the recession’s lasting impact in Idaho.
The state’s median household income has dropped considerably since 2008, when half of Idahoans earned more than $47,576 and half earned less. In 2011, median income continued its retreat, falling to $43,341. That’s a nearly 9 percent drop.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Christopher Furlong / Getty Images
Just one Idahoan appears on Forbes’ list of the 400 richest Americans, released today. He is Robert (Earl) Holding, 85, founder of the Little America chain of hotels and resorts, and owner of Sinclair Oil Corporation.
Little America and Sinclair Oil are both based in Salt Lake City, but the hotel group also owns Idaho’s Sun Valley Resort. Holding is listed as a resident of Sun Valley.
Forbes puts Holding’s net worth at $2.6 billion.
Idaho businessman Frank VanderSloot, who recently disputed press descriptions referring to him as a “billionaire,” does not appear on this year’s list. He did make an appearance in 2004.
Carsten Koall / Getty Images
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare now has a $100,000 study on Idaho’s Medicaid program in its hands. The department commissioned the study in April, in preparation for the Medicaid expansion that was then required under the Affordable Care Act.
In light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, which made the Medicaid expansion optional for states, the study has gained even greater relevance. It’s expected to inform the decision that now awaits Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter: should the state expand Medicaid eligibility, or not?
A working group established by Gov. Otter shortly after the Supreme Court upheld the federal law in June is now weighing the state’s options. Potential cost was a main question mark at the group’s first meeting in August. Continue Reading
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