Working poor keep waiting for help

Hurricane Irma didn’t just expose problems with nursing home safety, tree trimming and other aspects of emergency preparedness. It exposed the economic reality of South Florida.

Officials with the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) pronounced themselves gobsmacked by the turnout last weekend at distribution sites for emergency food vouchers. The program, which the federal government finances and the state administers, is for struggling people who aren’t in the regular food stamp program, but suffered losses from the hurricane that hit Florida on Sept. 10.

The Miami Herald reported that 50,000 people showed up at Tropical Park on Sunday, the last day for people to sign up in Miami-Dade County. Some had arrived at 2 a.m.

In Broward, DCF officials canceled the Sunday signups, saying people had become unruly while waiting in line Saturday at three parks that served as sign-up locations. Yet there were no arrests. The bigger problems were traffic and people overcome by the heat. Said one woman, “I mean, there are old people here who haven’t had water in hours.”

The program’s potential benefits — $300 for a single person, $1,300 for a family of four, depending on income and amount of hurricane damage — might seem small to residents who have jobs with good benefits and salaries that keep coming after disasters. But for the increasing number of South Floridians who live paycheck-to-paycheck — known as the “working poor” — the money means a lot.

“That’s so many hours in the sun, so many hard hours, but my wife and I have an autistic son and two other children,” a man who gave his name only as Enrique told the Herald. “But for a family with five people, I might get $1,500. It all adds up.”

These Floridians suffer much from hurricanes. They are construction workers who don’t get paid when severe weather shuts down a job. They are restaurant workers who don’t get paid until their business reopens. They are the Floridians whom the Legislature annually overlooks.

Yet as the latest ALICE report from United Way of Florida shows, this is becoming a state of the working poor.

The acronym stands for Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained Employee. It applies to households with incomes that are above the federal poverty level, but not high enough to achieve what United Way considers financial stability. Though the adults may be working, these families “struggle to afford basic household necessities.”

According to the new report, nearly 30 percent of all Florida households in 2015 were in that ALICE category. Another 14.5 percent lived in poverty. Combined, that covers nearly half of the state’s residents.

At 44 percent, Broward’s number aligns with the statewide figure. Palm Beach is a bit better, at 40 percent. In Miami-Dade, the combined total is a staggering 61 percent.

The problem, though, is not confined to urban areas. Union County, in rural northeast Florida, has the highest total — 70 percent. In Calhoun and Lafayette counties, which are also small and rural, the totals are 58 percent and 57 percent, respectively.

As he prepares to run for the U.S. Senate against Bill Nelson, Gov. Rick likes to brag about the state of Florida’s economy. The ALICE report, though, notes that the percentage of working poor Floridians increased from 2012 to 2015, even as unemployment kept dropping and the state kept adding jobs.

The report has an explanation. Of all the jobs in Florida, two-thirds pay less than $20 an hour. Seventy-five percent of those jobs pay less than $15 an hour. Just 27 percent of jobs in Florida pay at least $20 and hour, and only 5 percent pay $40 an hour or more.

For these residents to stay out of poverty and give them a chance to rise, they need health insurance and quality public schools. Yet Scott and the Legislature have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and have done nothing to stop the sabotage of the federal health care exchange, even though Florida leads the nation in signups.

Now comes the debacle of the food disaster signups. It went almost as badly as the governor’s 2013 rollout of the website through which people apply for Florida’s chintzy unemployment benefits.

Distribution did improve Wednesday at three Palm Beach County sites that will be open through Saturday. New distribution in Broward and Miami-Dade will happen “in the coming weeks,” according to a DCF news release. Mostly, DCF defended itself with numbers about how many people have received how much in vouchers. There also seemed little effort to spot fraud.

State government did badly in this attempt to help Florida’s working poor. Perhaps the exposure will help the Legislature readjust its priorities.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Elana Simms, Andy Reid, Deborah Ramirez and Editor-in-Chief Howard Saltz.