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Poverty and the Safety Net in Orange County <br />Accarding to data from the 2010 American Community Survey, 16% or 19,700 Orange County residents <br />live in poverty. The following report provides an overview of paverty and the safety net in Orange <br />County - who lives in poverty, where they are, how much they <br />earn, and what safety net services they can receive. <br />Who Lives in Poverty? <br />Most- almost 75 percent - of county residents living in poverty <br />are between the ages of 18 and 64. This includes much of the large <br />student population living in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, though most <br />students neither qualify nor need public assistance benefits. More <br />significantly, 15.5% of all Orange County children and 8.4% of <br />families live below the poverty line. <br />15.5% of all Orange <br />County children and <br />8.4% offamilies live <br />below the poverty line, <br />Mare females than males live in poverty - 58 percent- and single mothers suffer disproportionally. <br />Almost one in three single mothers lives in poverty, and that likelihood increases sharply (41.8%) if the <br />mother has a child under age 5. <br />While most residents who fall below the poverty line are Caucasian, 17% are African-American. Other <br />races make up much smaller percentages of those in poverty. Almost 30% of all county residents of <br />Hispanic or Latino origin live below the poverty line, as do almost a quarter of the Black or African <br />American residents. <br />Where do Those in Poverty Live? <br />The greatest concentrations of individuals and families living below the poverty line are located in and <br />around the city limits of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, as well as in the rural areas surrounding Hillsborough. <br />It should be noted that students are included in counts in some sections of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. <br />What is "Poverty"? <br />The poverty threshold is a formula based on the Consumer Price Index that calculates what income is <br />needed to feed a family. Those whose income is below this threshold are considered unable to feed their <br />family. This measure has been widely criticized as being an inaccurate estimate of the number of families <br />living in poverty, and in fact, most federal programs of public assistance use a higher threshold to <br />determine eligibility. Food and Nutrition Services (formerly food stamps) uses 200% of poverty as its <br />eligibility threshold. In Orange County, approximately 1 in 3 residents have income below 200% of <br />poverty. <br />1 <br />