The year 1999 saw hard times for families and mainly kids in Milwaukee county. With financial problems troubling society at the time, countless families were split between making a decision on choosing Milwaukee Chapter 7 or Milwaukee Debt Settlement plan to deal with their financial problems. In spite of the best effort of employed families in the county, many of them had salaries below the poverty line. This fact is in accord with Wisconsin state tax returns. According to a census carried out that year, the calculated figure of children living in such families was found to approach 59,100. There existed another group of so called "Near poverty" families who were employed with an income of approximately 105-185% above the recognized poverty level. The census revealed that another startling figure of 53,800 children were found to reside in those families.

Further Studying the records, it reveals another interesting discovery. In the "extreme poverty" range, the number of children of employed families was seen to decline. At the same time this figure was increasing in the "Near Poverty" spectrum. The decline and increase were 3% and 6% respectively. The problem with families facing the criteria of "Near Poverty" is that they are less likely to get public care for their children and enjoy food stamps or medical insurance, for which amenities they are highly suitable.

In 1998, income tax credits which were earned by the state helped out around 52,081 families taking 16,800 county youngsters out of the poverty range. But these declare rates dropped in 1999 and eligible families with credits approaching 5,731 dollars could not claim their share. In 1998, a heavy figure of about 27 million dollars in federal and tax credits of the state remained unclaimed. On the plus side, the number of working families had rose from 1993 to 1999. Unfortunately such increment did not benefit the kids much and the number of children being served appropriately predicted to be 28,000 lower than the number in 1993.

Families consisting of only a father or a mother dominated the statistics. Their number had neared 49% of all families living in the county. Putting it in layman terms, one of every three single-parent-families in the employment range had wages below the poverty line by 185%! These sad figures readily stand for themselves. You can imagine the sort of misery the children living in this county must be coming across.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. The state of Wisconsin has focused of such figures and has been striving to improve the lifestyle of the miserable kids residing there. A fine example to illustrate this is the existence of three medical insurance programs accessible to children living in families of low earning. Medicaid (MA) has been made accessible to families qualifiying for the criteria of eligibility defined in July 1996. Another program named Healthy Start, helps by supplying medical coverage for the families that have pregnant women or children aged 6 years. A Badger Care Program is for uninsured families who cannot meet the criteria of the above.