New economic well-being data on the KIDS COUNT Data Center reveals that the number of Kentucky tax payers filing for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) rose from 17.3 percent (296,273) in tax year 2000 to 20.7 percent (379,255) in tax year 2008, Tax year 2009 data will likely show a significant jump due to the EITC expansions within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The federal EITC allows low-income working families [...]

Recent poverty numbers have been at the forefront of our minds since the Census released two new sets of data this month. We’ve been talking about how child poverty and overall poverty have been increasing while median household income has decreased. The monthly economic indicators that we track from August echo the Census data, painting a pretty bleak picture about Kentucky’s economy and the welfare of children and families. Kentucky is not going to make [...]

It came as little surprise last week when we learned that more Kentuckians, and more kids, are living in poverty now than in recent years. In 2010, 26.3 percent of Kentucky’s children were living in poverty – that’s more than one in four. And 19 percent of the total Kentucky population, almost one in five, was living in poverty. For a family of four – poverty means a yearly income of $22,050 or less. However, [...]