USA Today has a story about the numbers of working poor increasing in several communities, with the examples including metro Detroit.

A snippet:

Chris Edwards, director of tax policy for the libertarian Cato Institute, says several factors could account for more poor workers concentrating in poor communities, including the housing boom that made once-affordable areas less affordable and the increased attention on getting low-income workers to take advantage of the tax credit.

“Just because more people are using (the credit) may not necessarily mean there are more people who are poor,” Edwards says.

According to the report, the metropolitan areas of Allentown, Pa., Detroit and Augusta, Ga., saw the largest increases in the concentration of low-income workers.

That’s a fair criticism from Edwards about the numbers of those filing for the credits. Even though I can’t tell whether Monroe County is part of “metro Detroit” for this example, I do know there was a campaign led by non-profit agencies in Monroe County to get more eligible taxpayers filing tax returns and claiming the earned income credit.

But consider this: people wouldn’t be getting the tax credit if they weren’t eligible for it in the first place.