Here Are the Latest Census Data on Poverty in Missouri

Posted on by Emily Stahly

Between 2016 and 2017, the poverty rate in Missouri decreased from 14.0 percent to 13.4 percent and the child poverty rate also dropped from 19.2 percent to 18.6 percent according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 1-year estimates. The Bureau recently released its 2013–2017 5-year estimate, which provides more accurate estimates of smaller geographic areas like counties.

So how are Missouri’s counties faring? Below are four interactive maps that provide some information about the disparities between counties in Missouri with regard to the poverty rate and the child poverty rate. For reference, the federal poverty line for a family of four in 2017 was $24,600 and the child poverty rate is the percentage of children under the age of 18 whose family’s income falls below the federal poverty line. 

Here is the poverty rate for each county according to the 2013–2017 5-year estimate:

And here is the child (under age 18) poverty rate for each county according to the 2013–2017 5-year estimate:

 

The next maps show the percentage-point change from the 2008–2012 5-year estimate to the 2013–2017 5-year estimate. It should be noted that even with this data set, there are fairly large margins of error; still, these numbers give us an idea of the direction in which a particular county is headed.

This is the percentage-point change in the overall poverty rate between the 2008–2012 and 2013–2017 5-year estimates:

 

And here is the percentage-point change in the child poverty rate:

 

Poverty is decreasing in Missouri overall, but it appears that some parts of the state are faring better than others. 

Kansas City and St. Louis Battling National Trends

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

From costly bad bets subsidizing the development of Kansas City’s Power & Light District to promoting the St. Louis Ballpark Village at the expense of businesses already in the area, city leaders are eager to combat urban flight to the suburbs.

But urban decline isn’t unique to Missouri. People all over the United States are voting for suburbs and exurbs with their feet. Giving tax dollars to a few more bars and restaurants won’t change that.

In their paper, “Beyond Gentrification,” researchers Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox lay out the case that:

The spurt of urban core growth that occurred immediately after the housing bust was short lived. The preponderance of metropolitan growth has returned to the suburbs and exurbs, as had been the case at least since the late 1940s.

Kotkin and Cox make their case with census data: Suburbs are growing much faster than urban areas. Claims by urbanists such as Richard Florida that “creative class” millennials would come to cities and stay were wrong, as Florida himself admits. Unfortunately, cities like Kansas City and St. Louis spent billions of dollars exacerbating the problems of gentrification through subsidies, and continue to do so, chasing a myth.

Population increase breakdown

If city leaders only understood that they are swimming against a nationwide current, they might be a bit more circumspect in their distribution of taxpayer dollars. But whether it’s misplaced faith in the promises of urban developers or the allure of campaign contributions from those same companies, something is compelling policymakers to invest taxpayer dollars in projects that benefit the developers at the expense of the communities where they are undertaken. Meanwhile, organizations such as the Downtown Council in Kansas City vacuum up tax dollars and spit out absurd population growth claims.

Kotkin and Cox point out what any close observer of Missouri’s urban politics already knows:

It seems clear that gentrification has not benefited the poor and may well have harmed them by spiking housing prices and, perhaps less obviously, restructuring urban economies in ways that hurt blue collar workers. Reporters and politicians might swoon over the latest “hip” urban manifestation, but the poverty rate is still two-thirds higher in urban cores than in the suburbs.

Beyond Gentrification then focuses on three cities—Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles—to flesh out what is happening in cities across the country. These things are happening in Kansas City and St. Louis, too. And no convention hotel, trolley, or new stadium will turn this around. We know, because other cities are pinning their hopes to developments like these, and it isn’t working. It won’t work for us, either.

City leaders across Missouri need to understand their cities’ competitive advantages and promote them. (The Show-Me Institute has already catalogued some for both Kansas City and St. Louis.) They need to deliver on infrastructure, public safety, and basic services efficiently and effectively. And they need to resist diverting tax dollars in pursuit of urban development that often does more harm than good to the surrounding communities.

 

Missouri’s Starting Teacher Salary Is Higher Than Previously Reported

Posted on by James V. Shuls

“Missouri ranks 49th nationally in average starting teacher salary at $31,842.”

This quote comes from an ABC 17 news report, but it is simply not true. They attribute that statistic to “A recent report by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.” Over the past few weeks similar stories have spread like wildfire across Missouri media outlets. The Kansas City Star calls this “pathetic.” The Herald-Whig draws on this statistic to claim that Missouri’s school funding is “inadequate.”

There’s just one problem—the statistic is completely wrong.

Although the $31,842 figure is attributed to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), DESE officials did not calculate the figure. In his report to the State Board of Education, Paul Katnik, assistant commissioner at DESE, cites this figure from Niche.com. But, of course, Niche.com didn’t calculate the figure. It cites a report from the National Education Association. We don’t know how the NEA calculated the figure.

What is shocking is that people who should recognize how wrong the number is have not done so. Rather, they are perpetuating this lie. For instance, Todd Fuller, the director of communications for the Missouri State Teachers Association (MSTA) is quoted by KOMU as saying, “I don’t think it’s surprising that we’re ranked where we are…For starting teacher salary to be that near the bottom, it’s discouraging.” The MSTA’s own research contradicts this low salary number!

MSTA collected the starting salary schedule of every school district in the state. It then calculated the average starting salary for each school district. In 2018-19, the starting minimum salary was $34,290. It hasn’t been as low as the DESE reported figure in over five years.

What’s more, the MSTA figure is undoubtedly a lower bound. The MSTA calculations weight each district evenly. Smaller school districts tend to have lower teacher salaries, but they hire fewer teachers. So, we can conclude the average is most likely higher than $34,290. (It’s worth noting that all of these salary figures do not include benefits like health or retirement. This means the economic benefit is quite a bit higher than the salary would indicate.)

So, what is the real starting teacher salary? Using DESE data containing teacher salaries for all Missouri teachers in 2017, I attempt to answer that question. First, I limit the data to those who are reported as first-year teachers in Missouri public schools with no experience in another state. Then, I remove any teacher who is not listed as full-time or is not making $25,000, the required minimum for a full-time teacher.

When I do this, the average starting teacher salary in Missouri is over $37,000. It is slightly higher when we consider the extra pay teachers get for engaging in additional duties, such as tutoring.

Should we really quibble about a few thousand dollars? Absolutely! We should demand accurate information from our policymakers, especially when those statistics are being used to drive policy discussions. We have already seen calls to raise the state minimum starting teacher salary. Interestingly, only three school districts start teachers out at the minimum, according to the MSTA report.

In 2017, just 39 teachers earned a salary of $25,000 and less than two percent of the total teacher workforce earned less than $30,000. Moreover, many of these “teachers” are not what we would consider regular classroom teachers. Of the teachers earning less than $30,000, at least 16 of them are classified as “in school suspension” teachers. Another 58 are listed as “Advisory/Homeroom.”

If you raised all these teachers up to $30,000, it would increase average pay in the state by about $30 a year in average salary. Importantly, it would place an inordinate financial burden on small, rural school districts. The end result of this blunt policy change would likely be teacher layoffs, increased class sizes, more four day school weeks, or the cutting of extra programs in these districts.

The debate about teacher pay is important, but this is the wrong way to go about it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If we are going to have important policy discussions, we should have that discussion honestly and with the correct facts.

There’s a Bike Lane Around Here Somewhere

Posted on by Kelvey Vander Hart

Do you need an example of the price we pay when we fail to look ahead? Look no further than Kansas City’s new parking protected bike lanes.

The three-mile route opened in August, running along Armour Boulevard in Midtown. Advocated for by groups such as BikeWalkKC, the $700,000 project was highly praised by both city officials and the media. However, the lack of foresight in planning these lanes quickly became evident.

Protected bike lanes, where bikers ride in between the curb and a row of parked cars, have the potential to help keep riders safer than they would be if they were in the main traffic lane, side-by-side with moving cars. According to a story from KSHB news, some residents have complained of extremely limited visibility when turning out of cross streets onto Armour Boulevard. But the same story noted that the Kansas City Police Department had not seen an increase in accidents along the road where the bike lanes were added, so cyclists and drivers seem to have been fortunate so far.

The onset of winter, however, has revealed another problem, as the lanes have been obstructed—first by large piles of leaves, and later by snow and ice, rendering them unsafe and almost unusable. Many bikers are using the popular neighborhood site Nextdoor to vent their frustration:

“I had to be in the middle of the street on Armour on my daily morning bike commute, which completely defeats the purpose of the bike lanes…Everyone seems to have a problem with these new bike lanes, myself included, and I’m a cyclist!”

The need to keep the new bike lanes cleared should hardly be a surprise. People continue to bike, whether to work or for fun, year-round – not just during the warm months. It takes only common sense to recognize that bike lanes, just like streets for motor vehicles, need maintenance and upkeep if they are to remain usable in bad weather. But as the picture above shows, there’s little evidence that bike lane got any attention after the snowfall earlier this month. (And yes, that snow-covered area just to the right of the row of cars really is the bike lane.)

No one wants to see cyclists put at risk, whether by motor-vehicle traffic or by treacherous bike paths. But spending over half a million dollars on a bike path—especially one that is rendered useless by bad weather—is hard to justify. According to a 2016 report from the League of American Bicyclists, only 0.4 percent of Kansas City commuters ride their bikes to work. I don’t know what fraction of those riders take this specific stretch of Armour Boulevard, but we aren’t talking about a large number of riders.

I hope that in the future, city leaders will think carefully about the benefits and costs, and the future obligations, that come with projects like the Armour Boulevard bike lanes.

 

Show-Me Institute Issues Brief Regarding “Pay to Stay”

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

Recently the Columbia Missourian ran a story about jail bond bills—payments that defendants are required to make to cover their own incarceration in county jails. According to the story, only seven of Missouri’s 114 counties do not collect such funds. And a defendant who is unable to “pay to stay,” may be sentenced to longer jail terms with higher resulting board bills.

In effect, the counties are operating debtor’s prisons.

George Richey is one person who has had a run in with these board bills. According to the Missourian,

Of the $3,226 assessed to Richey in 2015, $3,150 is for board at $35 a day.

Almost 2 1/2 years later, Richey is still paying for that bill, with a balance of around $1,600 left as of May. That is, until he was hit with a new board bill in 2016 of an additional $2,275—the result of being jailed because he couldn’t fully pay the first bill.

Missouri is not alone in this practice. According to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, “as of 2015, at least 43 states authorize room and board fees and at least 35 states authorize medical fees to be charged to inmates in either state or county correctional facilities.”

Through his public defender, Richey filed suit against the state of Missouri seeking to end the practice, and Missouri’s Attorney General lent support to Richey’s effort, noting in an amicus brief filed with the Missouri Supreme Court, “De facto debtors’ prisons have no place in Missouri, and I am proud to stand up against a system that seeks to treat its poorer citizens as ATMs.”

Last week, the Show-Me Institute joined the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, the Fines & Fees Justice Center, the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, and Fair and Just Prosecution in submitting an amicus curiae brief to the Missouri Supreme Court. The brief notes that the current system burdens both the individuals being fined as well as the courts, and that there are other, more effective ways to collect debt. The filing concludes:

Jail debt, when imposed on indigent individuals like Mr. Richey, is irrational, unjust, counterproductive, and likely unconstitutional.  This Court should reverse the trial court’s denial of Mr. Richey’s motion to retax costs.

There are plenty of opportunities for criminal justice reform in Missouri, and we have written about many of them in the past. Often such reforms focus on how to maintain public safety while reducing costs to taxpayers. This effort, however, focuses on protecting the liberty of individuals from pernicious government. We hope the courts will agree.

State of the State Highlights Show-Me Research

Posted on by Scott Tanner

In Governor Parson’s State of the State address last week, he touched on many topics that Show-Me Institute analysts have been writing about for years. A brief list of topics from the speech, accompanied by links to relevant writings from Show-Me Institute researchers, follows:

  • Workforce development wasn’t just mentioned in the speech—it was singled out as one of the two most important policy priorities moving forward. Patrick Ishmael has been out in front of this issue, writing on the importance of workforce development, particularly in the area of vocational training. Readers of this blog may also have seen posts by Emily Stahly on the potential for charter schools to help give Missouri a more skilled workforce, and by Abigail Burrola on how a focus on industry-recognized credentials could better prepare our high-school graduates for good jobs after graduation.
  • Infrastructure was the other issue designated as a top priority, particularly the pressing need to fund necessary repairs and improvements to Missouri’s highway system. Back in 2016, Joe Miller wrote a comprehensive paper on options for funding the Missouri Department of Transportation. More recently, Graham Renz and Patrick Tuohey have advocated for user fees as the best way to fund our state’s transportation needs, whether through a gas tax or some form of tolling.
  • The Governor noted the drain on the state’s finances caused by Missouri’s high incarceration rate and his desire to avoid building more prisons. Ways to help keep prison populations down include reform of laws governing mandatory minimum sentencing and efforts to help ex-offenders enter the workforce, as Patrick Tuohey has written.
  • The need to control the growth in the cost of the state’s Medicaid program was also discussed. Elias Tsapelas has not only written on this topic, but has also looked at measures being taken in other states to address the problem

Even topics mentioned only in passing during the speech have been covered by Show-Me Institute analysts, including telemedicine, tax credit reform, and educational challenges facing children with autism and other disabilities.

It’s encouraging to hear that so many long-overdue reforms may be on the docket during the current legislative session. As we watch to see if 2019 will bring important changes to Missouri policy, we’ll continue to research and advocate free-market solutions that will help move our state forward.

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