Tell Me Why

The good news is that Rock Island County has been moved off the Illinois poverty warning list. The bad news is that RICO remains on the poverty watch list.

But still, progress is progress. Unfortunately, the D/A article gave us no clue as to what caused the improvement.

The benchmarks are:

1. High school graduation rates

2. Unemployment figures

3. Teen births, and

4. Overall poverty rates. (?)

This article reads like a press release. This is the county board chairman’s rah-rah: “We’ve been moving progressively…(w)e’ve been working with schools more, to get closer to where they can help people out.”

Huh? What? The report says county high school graduation rate stayed the same. Why didn’t Jonathan Turner ask what “progressively…where (schools) can help people out” meant? Did schools NOT progressively help people out before? In fact, Turner never asks specifics about any of these claims or what The Task Force as done to effect change—-he seems happy to just be a stenographer for the government. Sheesh!

The report also says that the total number of people in poverty and the percentage of children in poverty GREW since last year; that the unemployment rate was UP from the previous year. Only the teen birth rate was lower than last year, down by 1.5%.

So, you might be asking why the rosy spin from the county board chairman? The answer is that unemployment for bureaucrats is going DOWN!

The (literal) money quote:

The task force is working with Western Illinois University and Black Hawk College to secure funding for a full-time coordinator to to head anti-poverty efforts.

More jobs and taxpayer money for academics and bureaucrats! Woo! Hoo! That’s a sure cure for poverty in RICO.

Sheesh!