Greenville's free alternative weekly

S.C. still has a long way to go to get out of the basement

By Andy Brack

A look at statistics about South Carolina can be as discouraging as encouraging. In some areas - - the unemployment rate, child poverty and child deaths - - the state has improved marginally. In other areas, such as overall health care and violent crime, things aren’t better. Two years ago, we offered a look at various statistics to highlight how conventional wisdom about the state - - that it ranks high in things that it should be low in, and low in things it should excel in - - was mostly true.
These numbers are important because politicians could use them as motivation to work on the big problems that impact South Carolinians - - health, education and crime - - instead of fiddling with more marginal, hot-button issues to get elected. Here’s another big list of lasts and firsts:

Residents’ physical health can stand improvements

Face it. Compared to other states, South Carolinians generally aren’t a healthy lot:

1st in stroke. The state has the highest rate of stroke victims – 65.2 per 100,000 residents. (National Center for Health Statistics.)

3rd in diabetes. S.C. is tied with Tennessee for the third highest adult diabetes rate (9.4 percent). (Trust for America’s Health.)

3rd highest in infant mortality. According to the KidsCount survey, the state went from the fourth worst to third worst in infant mortality rates.

4th in low birthweight babies. Conversely, it went from third worst to fourth worst in low birthweight babies, although the actual rate increased slightly. (KidsCount.)

5th worst place for kids. KidsCount ranks South Carolina as the 46th out of 50 in places for children to grow. Two years ago, it was 45th.

5th in adult obesity. South Carolina is tied with Tennessee in adult obesity with 27.8 percent of the population classified as obese. The state is seventh in the number of overweight children from 10 to 17 (18.9 percent), according to the Trust for America’s Health.

6th in hypertension. Almost 30 percent of South Carolinians have hypertension, the sixth-highest rate in the country. (NCHS).

17th highest in child deaths. An improvement. Two years ago, the state had the seventh highest rate of child deaths (KidsCount.)

18th in no health insurance. Almost 16 percent of South Carolinians don’t have health insurance, slightly higher than the national average, according to the National Coalition on Health Care.

Economic indicators mixed

South Carolina continues to have high unemployment - - fifth highest in August 2007, compared to fourth highest two years ago. But the rate has dropped from 6.6 percent to 5.6 percent, which is a vast improvement. Other numbers:

10th highest in food stamps. Some 12.4 percent of South Carolinians - - a 3.2 point increase from five years ago - - are on food stamps, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

15th in poverty rate. Census figures show some 13.7 percent of South Carolinians live in poverty, a slight dip from two years ago. But some 22 percent of the state’s children live in poverty, according to KidsCount - - the 10th highest rate in the country (which is better than the 7th worst ranking two years ago.).

49th in per capita growth. The state’s per capita economic growth was second-lowest in the nation over the past three years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Research.

Crime, education little changed

Numbers of crime and education are little changed:

1st in violent crime. Two years ago, the state was second in violent crime; now it is first, according to the FBI.

7th in domestic violence. The state used to be sixth worst in the number of women killed by men. Now it’s seventh, the Violence Policy Center said.

49th in police training. A recent USC study highlighted that the state requires the second lowest amount of hours (349) for training police officers.

49th in SAT. The state’s SAT ranking remained 49th, compared to two years ago. While the actual average score fell slightly in South Carolina, many educators point out that the SAT ranking isn’t an accurate measure of success because some states don’t require most of their students to take it, which skews results. They say the National Assessment of Education Standards, which shows S.C. students performing more in the lower middle of the country’s scores, is a more accurate gauge.

Bottom line: We can do a lot better, but we need leaders who focus on the big stuff, not specialized issues to help their electability.

Andy Brack, publisher of S.C. Statehouse Report, can be reached at:
brack@statehousereport.com. If you want to find sources for the statistics above, go to:
http://www.statehousereport.com/statsources.htm

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