While DuPage County has the lowest poverty rate of all counties in the Chicago area, the percentage of its residents living in poverty has risen at a higher rate since 1980 than any of its neighbors, according to a recent report on poverty in Illinois.

The percentage of DuPage County’s population living in poverty increased from 3 percent in 1980 to 4.9 percent in 2006 — a 63.3 percent increase, according to 2008 report on Illinois poverty by the Heartland Alliance’s Mid-America Institute on Poverty.

Poverty is defined by a federal guideline released each year based on the cost of food. Families or individuals whose annual income does not meet the federal poverty line are considered poor. For 2008, the poverty line is $10,400 for an individual and $24,800 for a family of five.

As of 2006, the most recent year included in the report, there were 44,494 DuPage residents living below the poverty line: more than the entire population of Elmhurst.

“In DuPage, the population increased 42 percent (from 1980 to 2006), but the number of people who are poor increased 125 percent,” said Amy Terpstra, a research associate at the Heartland Alliance. “A lot of people attribute growth in poverty rate to people moving there. ... When the growth in poverty rate outstrips (population growth), it shows homegrown poverty.”

One of the main causes of increasing poverty in DuPage and the suburbs in general is the erosion of stable, well-paying jobs, Terpstra said. Those jobs are being replaced by low-wage service and food-preparation jobs.

This is reflected in a decline in earnings from 2000 to 2006. Median annual earnings for individuals in DuPage County fell by $4,179, adjusted for inflation, according to the report. Median annual household income dropped by $8,470 during the same period.

This comes at a time when the county, facing budget shortfalls, has cut funding for social services. Grants to numerous nonprofit agencies serving the poor throughout the county were cut in 2007. Thanks to revenue from the recent sales tax increase, the County Board restored some funding for the grants, but not the full amount sought by human services officials.

Timothy Paul, a case manager at DuPage Public Action to Deliver Shelter, said the funding cuts at the county level reflect a trend happening on the state and national level. PADS provides temporary, permanent and transitional housing for the homeless in DuPage. 

“They’ve cut the social services budget in DuPage County, so with the cuts, we’re seeing a lot more people coming here for services,” Paul said. “They’re cutting safety nets. ... The impact of cutting social services is going to have a direct impact on the poverty rate.”

Melissa Travis is director of food services for the People’s Resource Center, a Wheaton-based agency that runs food pantries and offers emergency rent assistance, job training and other services for area residents.

The demand for services from the agency has increased 10 percent in the past year, she said. She cited the loss of well-paying jobs in the county as a main factor for the increasing poor population.

While the federal poverty line for a family of four is $21,200, the living wage in DuPage County for the same family is roughly $48,000, more than twice the poverty line, Travis said.

While the poverty line is the same everywhere in the country, the cost of living is not.
“It’s lot cheaper to live in rural Alabama than it is in DuPage County,” Travis said.

The Heartland Alliance report looks at figures through 2006 and does not take into account the current economic climate, which includes increasing gas and food prices and a looming fear of recession.

“There is the concern that these trends can get worse,” Terpstra said. “People who haven’t felt like they had low income before, people who haven’t felt like they’re struggling are starting to feel that way.”

Despite the gloomy outlook, Terpstra said there is a movement afoot to create a state commission that would work to cut the number of people living in extreme poverty in half by 2015. A bill already has passed in the state House of Representatives and is awaiting a vote in the Senate.

“There’s a lot of momentum behind this issue,” Terpstra said. “People are feeling that there’s some hope that we can enact some meaningful change to address some of the issues surrounding poverty in Illinois.”