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Kansans are getting poorer faster than everybody else in the country except Georgia residents.

Median household income in Kansas dropped 4.2 percent in 2004, from $45,094 to $43,204, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday. Only Georgia saw income plummet more quickly, by 4.7 percent.

Nicole Corcoran, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, noted the information comes from the time period when the nation was beginning to extract itself from the economic downturn after 9-11.

"Recovery is always a bit slower in the Heartland," Corcoran said.

That $1,890 in lost annual income could pay about two months rent on a typical three-bedroom home in Lawrence - or, as of Tuesday, roughly 630 gallons of gasoline.

Tuesday's news didn't surprise Paul Hunt at the Ballard Center in Lawrence.

"I get calls every day for rental assistance, utility assistance, people using the pantry," he said. "I'm making lots of new files for (new clients) who have never been in here before."

Nationally, household incomes were relatively stagnant, declining by 0.2 percent - a relatively minuscule loss of just $79 a year.

Xan Wedel, a researcher at Kansas University's Policy Research Institute, said Kansas' woes could be attributed, in part, to the post 9-11 slump in the state's aviation sector. The state lost more than 22,000 manufacturing jobs between 2001 and 2003, she said.

"Manufacturing jobs, which are usually higher paying, make up nearly 13 percent of the private sector employment, which explains why the effects of this sector can be seen in household median income," Wedel said.

The good news, she said, is that recent data from Kansas Labor Market Information Services shows a rebound in the manufacturing sector.

The state is seeing signs of recovering, Corcoran said, noting that Kansas had experienced 17 months straight of job growth, and that Forbes magazine this year ranked the state as the "business-friendliest" in the nation.

But Derrick Sontag, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, warned that the situation could have been worse if the GOP-dominated legislature had bowed to the wishes of Sebelius, a Democrat.

"I think it means the Legislature needs to hold firm in resisting any kind of increased spending or increased taxes that the governor has tried to impose in the last two years, while we try to get people back in the workforce," he said.

Other highlights from the Census Bureau report:

¢ The state's poverty rate rose from 10.4 percent in 2002-03 to 11.1 percent in 2003-04. The national average was 12.6 percent in 2003-04.

Wedel noted the three-year average poverty rate of 10.7 percent in Kansas was lower than the 1998-99 average of 10.9 percent, but added: "I feel this is something that Kansans will want to monitor over the next few years."

¢ Just under 11 percent of Kansans went without health insurance between 2002 and 2004, lower than the nationwide 15.5 percent rate.

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