We've looked at the numbers regarding the unusually high level of poverty in Miner County. But in the end, income is more than a pile of numbers. It helps define how we live.

So how does poverty affect our lives? The answers to that are not always outwardly apparent. We can look at the appearance of our towns and homes and justifiably think that we are better off than many rural areas. Miner County, and Howard in particular, seems to have more services and industry than many comparably sized places.

But the problem of poverty goes beyond those appearances. For people who live in or near poverty, lack of money is a real, everyday problem.

Many people hold multiple jobs to make ends meet, and extra work and lack of time are problems in themselves. The increased stress created by the work situation many people face could be a contributing factor to larger social issues like alcoholism and drug use.

But even for the large percentage of our population who don't live near poverty, the effects of it can be seen in more subtle ways. The issue in those cases doesn't have so much to do with financial capital as something called social capital.

Social capital includes the things we generally appreciate most about rural life: togetherness, volunteerism, leisure and social activity, and other things of that nature. Our poverty level does affect our level of social capital. People work more, so we spend less time with our friends and neighbors, less time helping others, and less time just doing the things we like to do.

Social capital also includes having things like businesses and good schools. Do we support our local businesses, or do we try to save a little bit of money by shopping out of town? How is the quality of our education affected when enrollment drops and school money has to be more tightly controlled?

There's no satisfactory answer to the question of how to end poverty. Poverty is not a new problem. It has existed throughout all time, and if there were one sure-fire way to get rid of it, it would have been done by now.

There are some programs available to help low-income households. Medicaid and welfare are the two most common federal assistance programs available to non-retirement age people and families.

But those two programs amount to a small percentage of the total money brought in from the government when compared to retirement initiatives like Social Security and Medicare.

In 1997, welfare brought less than one fifth as much money into the county as Social Security, and Medicaid brought in only slightly more.

So while those programs are in place, they don't dispense money at the extreme rate many people think they do. The reality is that welfare is a much smaller program than many other federal payment programs.

Perhaps approaching a solution to the problem of poverty must be done on a local level. If a place and a people hope to make a real difference in the world, we have to first take care of ourselves and learn what works and what doesn't. Local initiatives to increase economic development and social growth are the best hope in the long run for eliminating poverty on a wider scale.

If there is such a thing as a solution to the problem of poverty in Miner County, it may look a lot like the yet-undiscovered solution to ending poverty everywhere. But it will also have to have facets unique to our place, economy, and lifestyles.

Miner Notes was a weekly column written by Matt Laible for MCCR to promote understanding about the place we call home. All statistics and charts come from Dr. Daryl Hobbs at the University of Missouri. If you have questions or comments, please contact MCCR by calling 772-5153 or writing to P.O. Box 307 in Howard.