ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the national poverty situation to the Central Florida situation and then discusses how poverty is defined for these purposes and why the real rates of poverty are far higher than the official rates suggest, both regionally and nationally. As an aside of some significance, almost three-quarters of the region's disabled population fall into the low income category. Through programs such as Social Security and Medicare, elderly persons receive substantial income, health, and other welfare benefits that are paid for mainly by taxes on the working population. People, mainly women, were taken off welfare and placed in the labor force largely through the mechanism of time-limited welfare benefits. Thus, family financial well-being is often a function of total household labor force involvement. Many of the families are working long hours despite low wages, shrinking health insurance coverage, and serious tradeoffs between work and decent care for their children.
