State Spending on Programs for the Poor – South Dakota

State costs rise with poverty, By Jon Walker, November 15, 2009, Sioux Falls Argus Leader: “A new reality in the shadow of today’s health care debate is that a growing number of South Dakotans live in poverty. Use of Medicaid to pay health care bills jumped the past five years across the state, as did use of food stamps to buy groceries. Both trends indicate that more South Dakotans are low-income, and both show the pain that the recession has caused for individuals and families. But those trends also show that South Dakotans, already below average for wages, are losing ground to what the government defines as a minimum basic income. ‘People making ends meet two years ago and four years ago are not really as able to do that now,’ said Matt Diersen, a South Dakota State University economist. The rise in poverty presents a budgeting headache for politicians and a hard choice for doctors who must decide whether to accept more Medicaid patients at discount rates. But it also pushes more state residents to public health services…”