Concentrated Rural Poverty and the Geography of Exclusion Daniel T
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POLICY BRIEF, FALL 2008 Concentrated Rural Poverty and the Geography of Exclusion DANIEL T. LICHTER AND DOMENICO PARISI ost middle-class and affluent Americans have Measuring Concentrated Poverty little or no real contact with the poor—in neigh- borhoods, schools, or communities. The poor are We use sub-county data (at the block-group level) from Mliterally and figuratively separated from mainstream soci- the 1990 and 2000 decennial census summary files. Our ety, living in economically distressed places that often seem analyses include information on 225,115 block groups 1 worlds apart from most Americans. In fact, poor neighbor- in 1990 and 207,611 block groups in 2000. Block groups hoods are places to avoid; rightly or not, they are perceived are the smallest geographical units for which data on as different, dangerous, and dirty. They are “out of sight, out poverty and other socioeconomic characteristics are of mind.” made available by the Census Bureau. A block group Economically distressed communities often lack ade- is a cluster of census blocks. These aggregated block- quate institutional support services (e.g., health care and group data can then be linked to other salient county educational programs), good jobs that pay a living wage, social and economic characteristics from the decennial and a stable middle-class population that provides role censuses for analyses. Census tracts are larger than models and active networks to jobs and opportunities. block groups and typically serve as useful proxies for Opportunities for upward mobility in poor places are lim- neighborhoods in U.S. metro cities and suburbs. How- ited, and poverty is often passed along from generation to ever, they are generally ill-suited for defining housing generation. Poor people are seemingly trapped in place—in markets or fields of social interaction in rural America. poor places. Here we document changes over the 1990s in the micro- Poverty debates typically center on the urban poor, scale concentration of poverty in the United States. particularly those in the inner city. Much less research Specifically, we estimate recent changes in the share of and policy attention have focused on the rural poor. As a high-poverty block groups as well as the share of poor result, the rural poor are often left behind and forgotten and nonpoor people who live in them. Like other stud- in economically distressed small towns in Appalachia, the ies, we define high-poverty block groups as those with Mississippi Delta region, colonias along the border in Texas poverty rates of 20 percent or more. We also document and New Mexico, on Indian reservations, and in other the ghettoization of poor rural minorities and their geo- pockets of rural poverty throughout the country. graphical segregation from the rural white population This policy brief provides new empirical evidence on and the nonpoor. Individuals are defined as poor if they concentrated rural poverty. We find that one-half of all live in families with incomes below the official poverty rural poor are segregated in high-poverty areas. The rates income line for a family of their size and configura- are even more striking for minorities. Three-fourths of tion as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and rural blacks and two-thirds of rural Hispanics are segre- Budget. Family income is measured in the year before gated from America’s more affluent, largely white popula- the census enumeration (i.e., 1989 for the 1990 census tions. Clearly, the rural poor, like those in cities, are often and 1999 for the 2000 census). Individuals living alone physically and socially isolated from most middle-class or with unrelated individuals are regarded as a one- Americans. These findings call for targeted public policies person “family” for purposes of defining poverty. that address inequalities based on place and the geography of exclusion in America. 2 CARSEY INSTITUTE Why Concentrated Poverty Matters Table 1: Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Poverty Concentrations across Census Block Patterns of concentrated poverty highlight the changing Groups, 1990 and 2000 geography of opportunity in American society and barriers to upward mobility. Evidence of concentrated rural poverty 1990 2000 also suggests the need for place-based policies (rural devel- Metro Nonmetro Metro Nonmetro opment strategies, for example) that focus on structural conditions rather than individual deficiencies. Percentage of block groups with Poverty frequently grips America’s minorities, many of poverty greater than 20% 22.1 32.0 21.0 24.4 whom live and work in isolated rural areas. Rural blacks living in small towns in the South, for example, face long- Percentage of block groups with standing traditions of racial discrimination and economic poverty greater than 40% 6.9 6.0 5.0 3.5 oppression. More recently, Hispanics have dispersed from gateway cities into new rural destinations in the Midwest Percentage of overall population in high-poverty areas 19.5 32.1 18.9 23.5 and South, often to work for low wages in meatpack- ing plants, agriculture, or construction. Poverty rates in Percentage of poor people in America’s Indian reservations are exceedingly high. More high-poverty areas 54.6 58.3 50.9 46.7 than one-half of residents in some reservation communities are poor. Social exclusion and isolation in poor communities often reinforce racial and class inequality. Indeed, geographic and social mobility often go hand in hand. To get somewhere in life often means you have to go elsewhere. Unfortunately, rural minorities, elderly people, and the uneducated poor have few residential options that represent a step forward. Those who move often circulate between poor neighbor- hoods, communities, or regions. Figure 1: U.S. Nonmetro Block Groups with Poverty Rates Greater than 20 Percent CARSEY INSTITUTE 3 Figure 2: Share of Population in Poor Areas, Metro and Nonmetro, 2000 80 70 60 50 40 Percentage 30 20 10 0 Total Metro Total Nonmetro Poor Metro Poor Nonmetro White Black Hispanic Patterns of Concentrated The Good News: Concentrated Rural Poverty Rural Poverty Eased The good news of the 1990s is that many rural areas, includ- The share of rural block groups with poverty rates exceed- ing isolated populations in Appalachia and the South, ing 20 percent declined from 32 to 24 percent in the 1990s experienced unexpectedly large declines in poverty during (see Table 1). Declines were even greater in block groups the decade’s economic boom. Nonmetro poverty rates with extremely high poverty rates (40 percent or more). dipped to record lows (13.4 percent in 2000) before inching The share of poor areas clearly is declining, as is the share up again with the early 2000s recession. Whether recent of rural people who live in them. In fact, the share of rural poverty declines have been broadly shared across rural poor people in high-poverty block groups declined from communities and neighborhoods is much less clear. 58.3 to 46.7. The rural poor became less concentrated in Figure 1 shows that poverty remains highly concen- poor areas during the 1990s. trated in Appalachia; the “Black Belt” crescent that extends from Arkansas to North Carolina; the Mississippi Delta; the Lower Rio Grande River Valley along the Mexico-U.S. The Bad News: Persistent Racial border; and Indian reservations in the desert Southwest and Differences in Concentrated Poverty the upper Great Plains states (mostly South Dakota). The map also clearly indicates a broad geographical spread Despite recent declines in concentrated poverty, these of “pockets of poverty.” Obviously, high-poverty regions results nevertheless dramatize the continuing high geo- like Appalachia, for example, are not uniformly poor, and graphic concentration of rural poor people in poor areas. perhaps more importantly, there are many pockets of poverty About 50 percent of the rural poor live in high-poverty even within affluent counties. In fact, more than one-half of block groups. The common assumption that the rural poor the nation’s rural high-poverty block groups were located in and nonpoor are living in the same neighborhoods or com- counties with poverty rates less than 20 percent in 2000. (For munities clearly needs revising. a definition of block groups, see sidebar.) The implication is Poor racial minorities are much more geographically clear: Rural pockets of poverty are often hidden by apparent concentrated than rural whites. Only 37 percent of poor prosperity, which gives a misleading impression of the extent nonmetro whites lived in high-poverty block groups in of concentrated poverty in America. 2000 (Figure 2). For blacks, 75 percent lived in high-poverty 4 CARSEY INSTITUTE areas. Perhaps surprisingly, rural blacks are even more Table 2: Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan “ghettoized” than blacks living in metro areas. Segregation, 2000 Hispanics are slightly less concentrated than blacks in high-poverty areas. Approximately six in 10 poor Hispanics Segregation Index* Segregation Index* lived in high-poverty block groups in 2000. These figures Metro Nonmetro are similar to those in metro areas, where 66.4 percent lived % % in “ghetto” neighborhoods. The worry is that this concen- Total Population 30.7 20.6 tration may limit opportunities for upward mobility and reinforce inequality from generation to generation. Poor White vs. Nonpoor White 30.1 20.6 Poor Black vs. Nonpoor Black 50.4 54.9 Segregation of the Poor Poor Hispanic vs. Nonpoor Hispanic 60.1 58.2 Poor White – Poor Black 67.0 69.3 Concerns about concentrated poverty also raise obvious Poor White – Poor Hispanic 63.0 61.8 questions about the putative lack of exposure to main- stream institutions and middle-class role models.2 When Poor Hispanic – Poor Black 71.2 75.2 families are socially isolated in poor parts of town, they Nonpoor White – Nonpoor Black 57.9 63.6 may not learn about job openings, discover positive outlets Nonpoor White – Nonpoor Hispanic 46.5 47.8 for their children, or be exposed to the many small and seemingly innocuous dealings of everyday life that shape Nonpoor Hispanic – Nonpoor Black 59.3 67.8 one’s opportunities.