If poverty were a disease, Pima County officials would have declared an epidemic by now.
In the past few years, local poverty has literally gone off of a chart compiled by the Pima Association of Governments. Yet elected officials, other local leaders and the media do not appear interested in the fact that Tucson recently eclipsed El Paso as the poorest major city in the Sunbelt.
The epidemic of poverty doesn’t seem to be a priority for either city or county government. We often hear about the proposed Rosemont Mine and the Rio Nuevo redevelopment district, but rarely do officials talk about the fact that 200,000 Pima County residents, or one in five, get by (or try to get by) on incomes below the federal poverty rate. For an individual, that translates to less than $10,890 annually, and $22,350 for a family of four.
Whether the increase in poverty is the result of a lack of job-training, reduced education funding, or something else, there is little discussion about trying to change the harsh reality that almost one in every four Tucson residents is currently living below the poverty line.
If a healthy economy is about a community’s collective capacity for productivity, how can Pima County prosper when so many of us are suffering from the debilitating social conditions imposed by poverty?
Figure 1 dismisses the notion that the local spike in poverty is due to the current recession. The city of Tucson has been ahead of the national poverty curve for decades.
Yet 15 years ago, when now-Mayor Bob Walkup was chair of the Greater Tucson Economic Council, he told the Weekly that the local economy showed signs of creating higher-paying jobs (See “Work More, Earn Less,” Sept. 12, 1996). He pointed to the relocation of more Hughes (Raytheon) employees and increased competition among teleservice companies as proof that the community was headed in the right direction.
Those higher-paying jobs never significantly materialized. Statistics from the UA Eller College of Management make it clear: When adjusted for inflation, there has been “no real increase in (Pima County) earnings in 39 years.”
In the 1996 Weekly article, Walkup declared that he was confident the economic corner had “already been turned.” He later went on to win three terms as mayor of Tucson, with his first election coming in 1999, when he defeated Molly McKasson.
Walkup did not respond to requests to comment for this article.
Looking back, it’s clear that the local economy did, indeed, turn a corner in the mid-’90s—but we were going in the wrong direction.
Inside the city limits, the percentage of people living below the federal poverty level went from 18 percent in 1995 to 23.4 percent in 2009 (the latest year for which figures are available). That’s an increase of almost one-third.
In Pima County, things were was only a little better: The county rate went from 16.9 to 19.3 percent, an increase of 14 percent. As a result, Pima County today is one of the poorest urban areas in the Southwest.
The city of Tucson has an even more dubious distinction: It has the highest percentage of people living below the federal poverty line of any of the cities shown in Figure 2.
At 9:45 a.m., Casa Maria on East 26th Street is already packed. Brian Flagg is passing out free meals and food bags, one after another.
Flagg is startled to hear about the dramatic increase in Tucson’s poverty rate. “I had no idea,” he admits. On an average day, he says, Casa Maria provides about 600 meals and distributes food bags to around 200 families.
Within minutes, a dozen or so people enrolled at the nearby Sullivan Jackson Employment Center arrive at Casa Maria to pick up lunches. Neatly dressed in clothes that would be worn to a job interview, the people in the group range in age from around 20 to near 60.
“Poverty sucks!” exclaims Terri, 56. She and her husband recently moved to Tucson because of a job offer—which fell through.
Terri says that until two years ago, they were well-off financially, but then her husband had an accident. For the last five weeks, the couple has been living in a shelter.
“You never know what will hit you,” Terri says.
Also in line is Angelina, a young Tucson native. “I worked as a cashier and hostess in a restaurant when I dropped out of high school,” she says. “But I (eventually) got my GED.”
Laid off from her last job in 2008, Angelina has been unemployed ever since. She’s at the employment center now and states: “There are job openings out there, and with my new skills, I have a better chance of at least being seen.”
That youthful optimism ignores the large number of high school graduates now looking for entry-level jobs, as well as the harsh reality of the percentage of local people living in poverty.
But why is poverty worse in Tucson and Pima County than it is on the state, regional and national levels?
“We’re in a growth economy,” observes Peggy Hutchison, the executive director of the Primavera Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has almost 9,000 poor clients. “We’re in a deep hole now and reaping the benefits of failed policies.”
Hutchison believes government policies at every level have increased Tucson’s escalating poverty. But state and federal actions, in her opinion, have had by far the largest impact.
“The poor are victims of the economic policies and priorities of this nation,” Hutchison states. “These are clear decisions. We do not want to invest in senior citizens; we want to reduce the pensions of working people; and we don’t want to invest in job-training or health care.
“Health-care is huge in pushing people into poverty,” Hutchison continues. “Not only the premiums, but when those without insurance have a health crisis, they can’t pay the rent, and then the (situation) snowballs.”
Hutchison also includes the housing collapse on her list of poverty causes.
“The foreclosure crisis is affecting middle-income people,” she says. “Now we’re seeing more people who have lost both house and job.”
When asked what we might do locally to stem the rising tide of poverty, Hutchison suggests that we need to rethink our dependence on population growth. “We don’t have a diversified economy, but are too reliant on real estate and construction,” she indicates.
Sam Stone, communications director for the Pima County Republican Party, has somewhat similar thoughts.
“There just aren’t many good-paying jobs (in Tucson),” he points out. “When housing crashed, it took many of them with it. We went from boom to bust.”
Stone says that if the community returns to the same old ways, little will be done to slow the increase in poverty. “It’s unfortunate, but there are two Tucsons,” Stone says. “One is the retirees, and (the other) is the service industry that supports them. There are few middle-class people, and that doesn’t promote economic growth.”
Democratic Pima County Supervisor Richard Elías agrees that just bringing more people into Pima County will not solve our economic woes.
“We have more retired people here,” he says, “and often, they’re not interested in investing in youth and families. They’re not as interested in the well-being of the community.”
Elías adds that the loss of construction jobs, the lack of overall employment opportunities, and the “boom and bust” aspects of Tucson’s economy are other reasons for the rise in local poverty.
As far as permanent large employers in Tucson, Elías points to two: The UA, and defense-related industries—and the latter, he says, has its own “boom and bust” cycle.
“There’s a long tradition of living here—4,000 years,” Elías says, musing on how we might break free of the “boom and bust” trend. “But we’ve never found a pathway to a sustainable economy. … We’ve never had a plan to create long-term jobs here outside of home-building.”
Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities (TREO) is the organization whose mission it is to bring in new, high-paying jobs and help stimulate the local economy. Some people blame TREO for not changing the economic landscape.
Frances McLane Merryman thinks that blame is misplaced. She is the vice president of the Wealth Strategies Group for the Northern Trust, NA, and she serves on the board of directors for TREO. She has a different perspective on Tucson’s inability to grow a more prosperous economy.
“The very glaring part about our poverty in Tucson,” Merryman insists, “has to do with education and our education levels in Tucson. … All the statistics show that the less education you have, the more poverty you have.”
As an example of the education gap, Merryman cites a large local employer currently trying to hire 150 people for high-paying jobs. “They can’t find qualified people here, because we’re not keeping up with the ever-changing demands of their technology.”
Merryman believes we have to change the way we do business in Tucson if we’re serious about creating a better economy for all.
“Our business policies,” Merryman says of past economic development efforts, “have been based on selling a house and a car to the next person who moves here. That will not work.”
Phyllis is a 57-year-old Tucson native and mother of five. She graduated from the UA in 1975 and for years worked from home while raising her family.
Employed by Arizona Mail Order starting in 1997, Phyllis was promoted three times and by 2009 was making almost $60,000 per year. Because of the economic downturn, she got laid off in June of last year.
With four people now in her household, Phyllis and her family are part of Tucson’s population living below the federal poverty level. She and her husband have drained their savings.
“It’s been a rough year,” Phyllis says. “We cut back on everything.”
Those reductions include home and vehicle maintenance—and even what they eat. “There’s been lots of chicken,” Phyllis says.
The couple has also reduced their outdoor watering, has raised the thermostat during the winter, and has a house that’s 85 degrees inside during the summer.
But despite those changes, Phyllis is upbeat about the future. She quickly exclaims of her life: “I’m very blessed.”
Phyllis does collect $240 per week in unemployment insurance. After a traumatic medical experience, she also enrolled in AHCCCS, the state’s health insurance program for the poor.
Having researched the job market, Phyllis decided to seek job-training as a paralegal through Pima County’s ONESTOP Career Center. “I’ve been applying for bazillions of jobs,” she states, “but the job market is (almost) nonexistent. … Finding a job is a full-time job.”
Some time ago, Phyllis applied for a $27,000-per-year job with the city court. One hundred qualified applications were received for seven positions, she says, and 36 were eventually interviewed. Although Phyllis was on that list, she wasn’t offered a job.
“Poverty is a hard reality,” Phyllis says. “I have much more appreciation now of others with no money.”
During the last 12 months, things have changed dramatically for Phyllis—and she knows she needs to change, too.
“People have to recognize that they can’t keep doing things the same way. I have to recognize I have to start over. That will be hard, but that’s what it’s going to take.”
Many fingers point to the historic “boom and bust” economy of Tucson as a prime reason for the growth in local poverty. But going forward, what are the community’s viable alternatives?
Sam Stone of the county GOP suggests one option: “We need to start talking about what others have done who’ve been successful,” he says.
Stone points to Austin, Texas, as an example. “Austin pushed hard 15 years ago to improve its high-tech (sector),” Stone says, “and now they have tons of good jobs with high wages. That’s something Tucson needs to be looking at.”
Wendell Long, CEO of Sol Casinos and the current board chairman of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, sees things a little differently. He thinks the answer instead is small-business job growth.
“A strong business climate is needed,” Long says. “We need to support businesses and (business) incubators while having a more business-friendly climate. … We really need job creation here to lower the poverty level.”
Frances McLane Merryman of TREO remains adamant that better education is the key to reducing local poverty.
“Education is the driver,” Merryman declares. “When it comes to fighting poverty, education is the No. 1 most important thing to improve.”
Merryman hopes others share her view. “We have new leaders in the business community who understand the importance of education,” she says. “That is the direction that will help reduce our poverty rate.”
On the other hand, Brian Flagg at Casa Maria holds local elected officials responsible for turning the sinking poverty ship around.
“We need leadership from the City Council, county government, and the non-brain-dead legislators,” he declares. “They must provide leadership.”
Peggy Hutchison of Primavera is doubtful that city and county officials alone have the resources to stem the rising tide of local poverty.
“We need to have a multi-party, multi-asset approach that makes sure what we’re doing is making a difference,” she suggests. “We should be working in new and different ways.”
Specifically, Hutchison targets the nation’s leadership. “We need politicians to make policy decisions that prioritize investment in working people. It’s not working to just focus on a war economy. … If the policies don’t change, I’m not sure how poverty will go down.”
To combat poverty in Tucson, Hutchison adds: “Arizona and Pima County need economic diversity.”
Hutchison is hopeful the community is ready for such a change. “Tucson is a caring place that values multiculturalism and is very generous,” she stresses. “People don’t want Tucson to be poor.”
Yet Hutchison acknowledges how daunting such an undertaking would be to achieve. “It’s like filling a bucket with holes in it,” she says. “We’re not catching up. We can’t change poverty if people don’t have jobs, adequate education and job-training.”
Supervisor Richard Elías agrees that Tucson’s economic future will not improve as long as Arizona politicians maintain their dismal record on educational spending. “Nobody has a magic pill that is going to fix this thing,” he states.
Elías predicts, however, that eventually things will rebound. An important part of that turnaround must address what he describes as the “economic deprivation in communities of color.” In his opinion, cultural diversity will need to be an essential part of future local economic-development efforts.
At the same time, Elías laments the fact that Tucson has lost events, such as spring training baseball, that bring us together as a community. “We need to find a way to replace the amenities we’ve lost,” he suggests. “We need to rebuild those activities that bring memories of good times shared with other people.”
As far as specific economic policy changes, Elías wants to see the Tucson area expand both its alternative-energy production and its environmental tourism. He’d additionally like to find ways to improve trade relations with Mexico, and agrees with those who have been pushing for years to gain improved north-south transportation routes across the state.
“We may be on the losing side of things right now,” Elías admits, “but I don’t believe we can’t fix things. … We sit in a wonderful place, an important place for transportation, in close proximity to the border, and with a beautiful environment. If you believe in boom and bust, it’s going to come back, and I hope we’ve learned our lessons (from the past).”
Anthony is a 24-year-old Tucson native who works at a local movie theater and is about to complete his associate degree at Pima Community College. While taking classes, he hasn’t always been able to work full-time, which has taught him some hard lessons about money.
“Being poor is tough,” Anthony declares. He considers himself luckier than most, though, because he has received some help from his family.
“You pretty much have to work all the time,” Anthony remarks. “A lot of jobs make it hard to go to school. You certainly can’t afford to go on an unpaid vacation. That would be like throwing money down the toilet.”
Anthony will be moving to Los Angeles in the fall to finish school and pursue a screenwriting career. He explains that most of his Tucson friends have college degrees—and still work multiple jobs to get by.
“I don’t think of myself as poor,” Anthony says. “I know what I want to do, and I have the energy to try to reach that goal.”
Anthony has a lot of sympathy for the many people who are forced to live paycheck to paycheck. “That’s a really terrible, never-ending cycle,” he says, adding that it’s his intention to end up in a different situation.
While real change may be needed to address the skyrocketing increase in local poverty, the legislative majority at the state capitol in Phoenix continues to cut funding for health care, education and even unemployment insurance. Terri, Angelina, Phyllis and thousands more in Pima County continue to look for work, and struggle to get by. Meanwhile, large numbers of educated young adults, like Anthony, leave Tucson in order to pursue their careers.
No one wants to imagine what the city of Tucson and metropolitan Pima County will be like if the poverty rate continues to rise at the current rate. Yet short of finding the collective will to shift the economic direction of the community, there appears to be little to stop us from continuing in the same very unnerving direction.
This article appears in Jun 23-29, 2011.
The Tucson area is known for its socialist bent. If you were business, would you locate in such an environment? Take a look at the eastern half of Phoenix/Scottsdale. That’s where
the money is. The “mile wide, inch deep” socialist crowd cause much misery to their people by attacking
business constantly, attacking the hand that feeds you, (no, it’s not the government that feeds you).
Feres
Here is what our state is doing for its residents. I was one of those that made a good living from the construction trades. When people got greedy and prices went sky high, the retired people stopped coming and buying. My pay went down and down. I’ve been unemployed for 5 months now. I don’t ask for any help from anyone including the government. My savings where used up and I had to sell everything I owned to get some money together again. I still have no idea what I will do. I’m very down, living in a camper keeping bills to a minimum.
Just when things couldn’t get any worse, the state of Arizona office in Tucson has come after me wanting to see if they can get any money from me. They know people are in trouble but since they spent the states money on ridiculous projects like the electric train downtown as example, they come after the poor to regain their out of control spending. They came up with a bill of $2,500.00 demanding I pay. When I explain my situation,they want to set me up on payments. How can I ad another payment when I already cant pay what I have? For some people in Tucson, it gets worse and worse.
I do agree with Flagg and Merryman’s comment. When I moved here 15 years ago, Tucson had unfair education issues and our city, state and county was not going to do anything about. AND this Rio Nuevo redevelopment is a joke. We as a tax payer has wasted more money where it could be used elsewhere. Wake up Tucson and get people in our government that care about “Tucson” and their residents.
CVH
We can thank good old Congressman Raul G for part of this..you know the BOYCOTT ARIZONA CONGRESSMAN. That and the socialist in the Tucson area – they do not want business, read Capitalism to flourish in their counties – so be it! As usual the people are the ones who suffer. Some of these people want to break off into their own state – away from Arizona…what a joke! Anyone that follows these morons and their “plans for a Az/Mexican state” deserve what they get out of their plan.
Some folks commenting here sure want to ignore the fact that people here are “victims of the economic policies and priorities of this nation”. So sad.
i am one of those who have a 2 yr degree plus – computer classes, etc. all in hopes of making a decent income. it hasnt happened over my lifetime ’cause other things get in the way. i live/survive being on various gvt. programs – section 8 housing, food stamps, ahccs, etc. i am 58 yrs old and has lived in tucson for almost 10 yrs. being a participant in these programs are degrading, etc. for me with my educational background. also i depend on public transportation to get around town. i have a az drivers license but i cant afford the car that goes with it. i have a hard time getting hired, etc. not biligual either which alot employers want and need. had the same problem in florida. i know and can speak some spanish but not enough to have a conversation with someone and understand them. i have done so many job training programs with a small amt of money, but then no transition to a full time job. only ft job being a single widowed mom for about 12 yrs. my daughter had behavior problems from the begining, eventually i had to sign my rights away.
Some folks commenting here sure want to ignore the fact that people here are “victims of the economic policies and priorities of this nation”. So sad.———-I am nor will I ever be someone’s victim. That is how people fail. I wouldn’t even know how to make only 10k a year. I have 3 jobs to make sure I don’t fail. I also have no credit cards my cars are paid off and the only loans I have are in real estate. This real estate market could have crushed me like a bug only I hunkered down hunted down oportunities and succeed through a great attitude and hard work. Don’t give up……AND TAKE THE MINIMUM WAGE JOB IF IT MEANS FEEDING YOUR CHILDREN AND YOURSELF!
So sad, great article David & Molly, glad U mentioned Brian Flagg, he’s a saint!
Poverty isn’t a governmental priority here. Does government here have ANY priorities?
Tucson Metro has always had a poverty rate higher than the national rate. It used to be about 2% higher, but clearly that has worsened. Tucson Metro also has about the same percentage of well to do as the national average. But where things really fall out of bed, is the median household income number. Tucson Metro’s median household income is way below the national number. Shockingly so. That is where the real problem is. There is no successful middle class to cause progress. No one to shop or spend money locally. The middle class in Tucson Metro lives hand to mouth. Until there is a successful middle class in Tucson, there will never be a solution to the poverty problem.
“Walkup did not respond to requests to comment for this article.”
No surprise there. Can someone check him for a pulse?
I don’t know what these “anti-Socialists” are complaining about–the wealthiest still have their money, and their homes. We don’t live in Scottsdale, we live in Tucson–a much more diverse and creative town. Funding public education is very important; but what kinds of jobs are we educating them for? Tucson’s always been prime for “green” industry and technology, and lots of people talk about it–but, where is it? Our elected leaders keep ignoring our pleas with doublespeak about “cutting taxes” while raising sales tax, which hurts MOST of the middle/lower income people.
I think the poverty article left a LOT to be desired as it didn’t even address numerous issues 1) overpopulation by those not prepared for it 2) barriers to preventing overpopulation (i.e. religion(s) 3) constant and massive in-migration of the poorest of the poor 4) people continuing to live in areas with no opportunities refusing to make geographic changes to find them 5) living outside of your means 6) laziness (the education is there to be had, many just don’t take advantage of the opportunities they do have and drop out). In addition health care costs were barely even mentioned! The local obesity rate is quite large and that has a direct impact on health costs and ability to do certain types of work.
As for working paycheck to paycheck that is what most people do and have done for centuries. Somewhere the national psyche decided that life was supposed to be unicorns and rainbows and if it isn’t then we are doing something wrong. Kids think that hard work is something to be avoided! There is a reason Americans tend to be a miserable lot is because all they see is what someone else has and what they do not which means they will always be miserable. Sunsets are free, hugs from loved ones are free, helping someone else with a little bit of your time is free. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are underrated. foie gras is overrated. Goodwill has some awesome bargains and old sewing machines are plentiful and cheap. If you don’t have an iphone life will go on.
If you want to understand why the poverty rate is so high in this community all you have to do is look at Pima County’s stance on the Rosemont Copper project. With unemployment rates stuck at record highs, they are spending our hard earned tax money to fight an environmentally sound project that will jump start our economy.
This article was nice to see, as I am one of those people that has been at the Primavera Men’s Shelter. My homelessness came about through no fault of the government, but my own. In December, 2009, I received a d.u.i. and my license was suspended. Since I had a driving job, I could no longer work there and became unemployed. I tried looking for work but most jobs want you to have valid driver’s license, experience, no criminal background, and must pass the drug test. Well, it is now June 2011 and I still am unemployed and living off of $200 of food stamps and whatever I can make collecting aluminum cans from the trash cans and eating regularly at free food places for the homeless. At first I stressed over not getting hired, and put in applications at many places but never heard a peep back and eventually decided that collecting aluminum cans was more profitable than putting in applications for nothing. It is embarrassing, yes, but things will probably not get better until the democrats (anti-business leftists) are voted out of local, state, and national positions. I just hope that it isn’t too late, because the Chinese “have us by the balls,” thanks to all the borrowing that has taken place by politicians.
“an environmentally sound project”
Thanks. I needed a good laugh this morning. Have a nice day!
And Tucson doesn’t get enough rain, and that’s the fault of the socialists, too! Some of these people must have walked through a whole pile of stupid on the way to the computer.
“And Tucson doesn’t get enough rain, and that’s the fault of the socialists, too! Some of these people must have walked through a whole pile of stupid on the way to the computer.”……………Happy to see you made it!
Tucson needs to stop spending money on all the useless crap they call art downtown. Spending money on bus stops that don’t even provide shade, while others don’t even have a bench to sit on. Really, who’s pocketing all that money, and now they want to spend more money on “art?” it’s ridiculous!
The jobs are not there, the paying jobs are not there….why? I think there are many reasons – lack of capable employees, lack of education, and anti-business mode of the city of Tucson and county of Pima.
If the city of Tucson council was voted in – and we see how badly they have managed things, such as Rio Nueva, who voted for them? If they are so unqualified, who are the so-called unqualified voters of them?
I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum within the last few years – laid off and the one in a position of interviewing to hire. When I was hunting for a job, I had one interviewer say that he had 100 resumes and only 3 qualified to interview. When I was hiring, people were asking for big bucks with no background in the position, no education, and no knowledge of how to interview or show up at an interview. With those odds, what kind of a large business that is capable of higher salaries, want to come in here to do business in a city that hampers anything you do?
How do they hamper? The city will make it very difficult for you to grow your business. If you need more space, they make it so costly and hard to expand the building – even if you are expanding into a space next to your office – that some just give up. I know another company that was planning to move here and had already put some money into it, but were given so many restrictions, they just said “to hell with it” and decided to cut their losses and move to Phoenix.
People are untrained, uneducated, do not know how to interview, have no experience but think they can go for any job – the severe lack of professionalism in an interview has boggled my mind. This is not going to be a quick fix or a one prong fix. This is not only a government problem – government has made poor fiduciary decisions in managing the growth of Tucson (or non-growth as the case may be), and people have failed to get the education and/or training available to them.
As for the medical issues hurting so many people financially — well, we blame insurance premiums — but it’s the medical costs alone that are way too high. Perhaps if the medical costs were much more reasonable, our premiums would be more reasonable as well. However, I do see that the Arizona Department of Insurance must be in the pockets of the insurance companies because they do not allow competition within a company by allowing employers to offer more than one plan — this is also allowing the insurance companies to unfairly hike up the premiums.
This is not a one prong approach people. And we are all responsible.
I moved to Tucson in 1984, (I left in 2004), it wasn’t that easy to find a job back then. I can’t imagine what it is like now, it has to be much worse. I still have a home there, and usually visit 2-3 times a year. The city seems more and more destitute each time I visit. It still has it’s charm due to the geography and history, but the economics of the town is downright ugly.
There probably isn’t an easy answer to the problem, and I even wonder if Tucson’s economic problems can be solved on a local level if there are no changes to our national policies. This is an economic trajectory the whole country is on, brought to us by over 30 years of Reagonomics and “free market” thinking. As the economic power of the middle class has deteriorated, Corporate Power has stepped in and put this country in a stranglehold, it seems no changes can be made. Undoing financial deregulation, free trade, and corporate power is a pretty daunting task. Try getting those messages thru the Corporate Media filter, it doesn’t work. Maybe there will be a movement towards change sometime soon, but as of now it doesn’t seem to be presenting itself.
Yo, ‘ocotillo,’ Maricopa County has been following policies that are closer to free markets by than that of Pima County and they are one of the fasted growing areas in the country.
As for Tucson’s city leaders:
‘What’s important is that young professionals are able to bicycle to work. That’s what’s what they are looking for in a community after college,’ said no one with a brain, ever. “Detroit of the Desert” have never been more true than it is today in Pima County after decades of one (Democrat) party rule.
“Supervisor Richard Elías agrees that Tucson’s economic future will not improve as long as Arizona politicians maintain their dismal record on educational spending…”
The legislature has a dismal record of funding public schools, but Tucson taxpayers have more than picked up the slack. TUSD spent more than $8500 per student last year…thousands of dollars per pupil more than any other local district…and still did a mediocre job of educating students. In fact, TUSD’s lousy educational results are not the result of too little money, but spending the money it gets in ways that benefit the adults who lead TUSD and not the students who attend TUSD schools.
Marty, if you think $8,500 is a lot of money, I suggest you look at high performing districts around the country. $8,500 is not a lot of money outside of Arizona and Mississippi. You need to look beyond “any other local district.”
Marty, let me help you with some numbers. New Trier Township HSD 203 which is located in the Chicago suburbs and has the best high schools in Illinois and some of the best in the nation spends $20,807 per student, and the average teacher compensation is $107,493 (2011 school year). The average teacher has 14.5 years of experience. Or look at what a private not for profit school again in Chicago, unburdened by collective bargaining agreements, politics, etc charges for tuition, $15,000 out of total expenditure of $20,000. In education as in most things in life, you get what you pay for. AZ has made the determination that it is not going to spend money on elementary and secondary education, that other things, like low taxes are more important. The unavoidable consequence is that we do not have the work force that will attract business, industry and jobs. When the decision makers are driven more by protecting values other than education that is the unavoidable result.
When my father first came to Tucson, he was puzzled and asked “Where do people work?” I pointed around to the small businesses that dot this town. He said “No, where are any factories? Where do people make stuff?” I did not have a good answer. See, we grew up in the Midwest, where that is what kept a town going. Sadly, because of our horrible trade agreements, most of those jobs were outsourced.
Luckily we do have some solar industry here. However, I can not think of any other manufacturing jobs. I hope Tesla does decide to open up their batter factory here. It would be nice to be home to a American owned company that is building products for the future.
Tucson is having a tough time with seeing the Middle Class disappear, but that is happening all over this country. We really can wait for the government to solve these problems. They are part of the problem with signing polices that allow companies to increase profits by closing plants, moving them overseas and laying off workers without any penalty.
People need to start voting for more jobs for Americans the only why we truly be effective..with our wallets. I buy American in almost every product I buy. The more American products we buy, the more the those companies make and the more people they will hire. We need to be our neighbor’s, our children’s, our parent’s, our community’s own “Stimulus” package.
Look around our town and you will find some people doing amazing things. Fed By Threads is a wonderful local shop that sells only Made in the USA clothing and donates to the Community Food Bank. We have a couple American Apparel stores that promote USA Made Clothing. Tucson Appliance is a local company that sells many products that are Made in the USA. If you can not afford new clothes, we have the Buffalo Exchange and it is a Tucson Company. When you go out to eat, make sure you stop by local restaurants and not chains. The people that own these businesses are your neighbors. They are our community.
If you do have to go to a Big Box Store, go to Costco. They provide a fair wage and benefits to their workers.
I think mike and I are posting, three years later, because of the slate.com article.
I bailed after high school because even in the late nineties I could see that unless I wanted to go into construction or work a menial service service industry job kissing tourist ass, I would have to leave the old pueblo.
What I would like to know about the high numbers of people living in poverty (of which I was a part of) is, are the chronically homeless included in the stats? And, if this article is about the whole of Pima county, are the Yaqui and O’odham reservations included too? If so, the label “off the charts poor” makes sense.
We are an (illegal)Immigrant Welcoming Community, we have too many Progressives that think that selling each other Birkenstocks and tie dyed t-shirts is an actual economy, we waste $230,000,000 for Rio Nuevo for nothing and NOBODY is in jail.
And we think that Tesla Battery company will actually come here and hire 6,000 employees. We are out of our minds if we think that will happen. The A-10 is leaving DMAFB and we are awash in crime (see first item listed).
We are so screwed. But we dont know it.
I lived in Tucson for 25 years. Went to elementary, middle, high school there and eventually UofA to get a degree in Computer Science. I worked at IBM for almost 5 years, and eventually left Tucson for much much better job opportunities in the pacific northwest. One of Tucson’s many problems is retaining it’s graduates. I’ve read several articles that claim “education” is the answer, but there are is no tech job market in Tucson. When I was living there, I wanted to buy a house in the city, but housing prices were out of my range. It never made sense to me that Tucson allowed so many communities to build outside the city limits. It’s obvious it’s un-sustainable as there are so many unfinished KB Home and DR Horton projects. At the same time, you have politicians focusing on discriminating against gays instead of looking at Tucson’s real problems. Great job Arizona on putting yourself on the national radar making yourself less appealing to the youth and tech businesses.
I’m a bit confused. The homes they are building South of East I-10, just before Houghton RD, seem to be occupied as soon as they are built. The Sunday Arizona Star lists at least a hundred+ homes a month that have been sold in the Tucson area. With all of the homes being sold, why is the local economy faltering? People are buying and I assume, living in these homes. They have to buy food, clothing, furniture, have transportation, pay taxes, etc.
Is Tucson’s population increasing? Will someone explain it to me?