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While West Virginia cut programs to low income families, often training them for jobs
that do not exist in the state, the U. S. Census Bureau reported more people are living
below the poverty level in West Virginia and parts of the south.
The poverty line statistics had been improving.
The poverty rate is the percentage of residents who live at or below the federal
poverty line, about $18,104 for a family of four. In West Virginia the poverty level is
15.6 percent in 2002, and in some counties reaches well over 20 percent.
The average amount to which poor people fell reached the highest level on record
since 1979, according to Census Bureau data.
Three million workers will likely not have found jobs by the end of the year with their
benefits exhausted.
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