The Spatial Concentration of America's Rural Poor Population: A Postrecession Update

Abstract

This article examines changes in concentrated poverty in the rural United States between 2000 and 2012. Using data from the decennial census and American Community Survey, we address three main objectives. First, we document changes in the number and share of counties with poverty rates above 20, 30, and 40 percent, stratifying our sample by metropolitan status. Second, we use exploratory spatial methods to identify geographic patterns in county‐level poverty dynamics between 2000 and 2012. Third, we estimate the share of the population living in high‐poverty counties, and track changes over time and by race and poverty status. Overall, we find a substantial increase in concentrated poverty since 2000. Increases in both the number of high‐poverty counties and the share of the population living in these counties were widespread, though spatially and temporally uneven in some cases. We also observe convergence in concentrated poverty between rural and micropolitan areas, and between non‐Hispanic white and Hispanic populations. Overall, we observe a reversal of the declines in concentrated poverty that occurred in the 1990s, and find that in many cases this trend began prior to the Great Recession.

Income Inequality across the Rural‐Urban Continuum in the United States, 1970–2016*

“…The distribution of household income across the U.S. population has become increasingly skewed over recent decades (Saez 2017), but there is only limited evidence of how these changes have played out at the local level. Historical processes of uneven spatial development have resulted in significant regional disparities in socioeconomic conditions across the United States (Chetty et al 2014; Iceland and Hernandez 2017; Lichter 2012; Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007; Thiede, Kim, and Valasik 2018). The United States—like other countries—is fragmented into sub‐national spaces that differ in terms of their demographic composition and social structure.…”

The Uneven Perils of Unemployment and Underemployment: The Role of Employment Structure in explaining Rural-Urban Poverty Differences, 1970-2018.

“…Second, for men, there has been a decline in labor force participation, particularly for white former blue-collar workers. This decline is rooted in the loss of traditional masculine jobs-particularly in rural areas-as well as declining health and rising disability (Jensen and Jensen 2011), and deindustrialization of the economy (Thiede, Kim, and Valasik 2018;Thiede and Monnat 2016). In this analysis, these men would be joining the discouraged worker group or those who want to work but are not actively seeking jobs.…”

Natural Resource Dependence and Rural American Economic Prosperity from 2000 to 2015

“…The use of a spatial econometric model was necessary due to the well-documented spatial clustering of social phenomenon across the United States (Brooks, 2019;Lobao et al, 2007;Thiede et al, 2018), as well as the ease at which changes in one county can influence its neighbors due to permeable boundaries (Chi and Zhu, 2019;Leicht and Jenkins, 2007). If an aspatial model were used, the assumptions of independence between units built into that model would be violated, producing incorrect estimates of model parameters (Chi and Zhu, 2019).…”