Free and Reduced Lunch Numbers Game
According to a report in the Charlotte Observer, the poor now make up 16.3% of the population of the Charlotte metropolitan area. This is a curious number primarily because being poor means having an income of $43,000 or less. Next step up is ‘Low Income’ which means having an income between $43,000 and $51,500. But let us start from the beginning.
We are told that in 1970 “poor” meant having an income of $6300 per year or less. Is that for a single person or a family of four? We’re not told. Be that as it may, we are also told that in 1970 the income level just above poor, “Low Income”, meant having an income of between $6300 and $7450.
We are also informed that the number of poor has increased from 6.8% of the population in 1970 to 16.3% of the population in 2007. This is where the information gets interesting.
Using the information available in an Oregon State publication found online, those numbers are a bit suspect. The link gives inflation factors for various years. The inflation factor for 1970 to 2010 (3 years beyond the 2007 reported) is .198. To get the inflation adjusted number for 2010, you divide the number from 1970 by .198. Doing the math we find $6300 after inflation is only $31,818. Instead we are now told poor means $43,000. To get to the $43,000 they want us to accept would mean one had an income in 1970 of $8514. That income level includes not only the poor, but all of the people described in 1970 as having low income ($6300 to $7450) and about half of the people described as having low to middle income in 1970 ($7450 to $9300).
So the first thing we notice is that the people described as poor in 2007 include people from a different income range than the people described as poor in 1970.
Which is it? Are there really more poor now? We can’t tell from the information given.
More interesting is to take this information and relate it to the Free and Reduced Lunch Program at Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools.
According to the CMS website, in the 2009 – 2010 school year there were approximately 133,920 students enrolled in CMS. My understanding is there are 30,000 students who live in Mecklenburg but attend schools other than CMS. So there are a total of about 163,000 students living in Mecklenburg County. Also according to CMS, about 50% of their students qualify for Free and Reduced lunch. That is 40% of the total population of school age children, yet we are told by the Observer that only 16.3% of the population is poor. Realizing this is not exact science one must still wonder about the 24% difference between the poor in the general population and the Free and Reduced Lunch population at CMS.
Some years ago, when Larry Gauvreau was on the school board, he tried to have the FRL program audited. It turns out it is illegal to check behind the people who ask for Free and Reduced Lunch subsidies for their children. And it becomes obvious why. If government is using that program as one more way to payoff the voters for bigger government, they certainly wouldn’t want it audited for truthfulness. Nor would they want to jeopardize the additional money they get for having a poor (pun not intended) student population.
Further, CMS administration uses FRL as a proxy for poor and then makes the excuse that their problems stem from so many poor children. But the CMS administration is well aware there are more FRL students than are actually poor, so what is the real problem? Maybe the new school board members will care enough to seek the answer.
As the saying goes: There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
The moral for the day: Pay attention to the statistics, you can learn more than is meant for you to know.
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