FOOD FOR OTHERS: Serving the Poor in Northern Virginia

Many people wonder why Northern Virginia, with some of the nation’s wealthiest counties, needs a food bank, like Food for Others. While this region enjoys some of the highest median incomes and lowest unemployment rates, in fact it is “easy” to be poor in Northern Virginia. A recent study from Researchers at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service today has used a new poverty measure designed to more accurately reflect the economic distress among residents of the commonwealth.

Using the new measure, the Cooper Center found that more Northern Virginia residents live in or near poverty than standard poverty measures would suggest, despite the region’s very high median income. The standard official poverty rate for residents inside the Beltway is 7 percent, while the new measure finds that 12 percent of Virginians in this region are in economic distress, on par with the new state poverty rate of 11.9 percent.

“Northern Virginia’s particularly high cost of housing and other goods is to blame,” lead researcher Dustin Cable said. “The new measure’s poverty rates for Virginia better conform to our common-sense understanding of the actual resources available to families, and the necessary costs they face. A one-size-fits-all poverty measure that ignores regional differences doesn’t make sense.”  

The new “Virginia Poverty Measure” improves standard poverty measurement by incorporating contemporary spending patterns; accounting for regional differences in the cost of living; and including in family resources the effects of taxes, government programs and medical expenses – all ignored in current official poverty statistics.

Many jobs in the region are minimum-wage jobs. The federal one-size-fits-all minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Minimum-wage jobs do raise a single person above the poverty line. For example, a single person making minimum wage forty hours a week, fifty-two weeks a year, earns $15,080, but for families such jobs fall far short. The poverty line for a family of three is $19,530 and for a family of four is $23,550. Many of these jobs require long commutes due to high housing costs.

So however you measure it, many families are poor in Northern Virginia. We see them every day. Thank you for helping us serve them.

For all information about donating or volunteering for Food for Others, call Nikki Clifford at 703-207-9173, or you may go to www.foodforothers.org.