banner sullivan-county.com






Political Pork Tri-Cities Virginia-Tennessee

Single Parent Problem in Southwest Virginia

by Lewis Loflin

According to the Virginia Dept. of Social Services the most common example of poverty in the State is the single white mother with less than a high education.

The social and economic ill effects of this are well documented and have destroyed the Black community and is now engulfing lower-class whites. Single parents are a huge problem across society.

Southwest Virginia has among the highest teen pregnancy rates in Virginia according to the Virginia Dept. of Social Services. I believe the problem is single parents period whatever the reason teenager or otherwise.

The job structure is such that even a single person with no heavy debts (student loans, car payment, etc.) can barely make it even here.

An intact real two-parent family would need three typical jobs between them just to survive without government help such as Medicaid for their children.

Voices for Virginia's Children (http://vakids.org/) notes of Virginia's 9th. District (Southwest Virginia):

"There are an estimated 126,334 children under age 18 living in Virginia's Congressional District 9. Of these, nearly 24 percent live in poverty." We rank second only to Congressional District 3 (estimated 163,326 children) at 30.1 percent.

See http://vakids.org/our-work/kids-count-data

Why Bristol is so bad for jobs

Our low-wage service-retirement-tourist economy makes single parenthood a full blown disaster. Per capita money income (2011 dollars), 2007-2011 Bristol $19,273 - VA $33,040

The real killer - median household income is half that of Virginia in general - 2007-2011 Bristol $32,122 while VA $63,302.

Persons below poverty level is double the Virginia average 2007-2011 22.4 percent and VA 10.7 percent.

In Bristol, Virginia, 23.4 percent of the population is living below the poverty level plus one-third of the children in Bristol live below the poverty line. In Washington County VA it's around 20 percent and in other parts of Southwest VA is even worse some as high as 40 percent or more.

And I can go on all day how much this region lags Virginia and Tennessee in every important social demographic, so why the lower crime rates? If we subtract non-violent drug offences it plummets even further. The answer is guns.

See Poverty and Guns Doesn't Equal Gun Crime