Anatomy of Nonmetro High-Poverty Areas:
Common in Plight, Distinctive in Nature
Calvin
L. Beale
Eyewire
The 1990s saw growing U.S. prosperity, ending with record-high
average income levels and the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years.
As a result, the incidence of poverty dropped from its level of
a decade earlier, according to the 2000 Census. This welcome decline
occurred particularly in rural and small-town nonmetropolitan
(nonmetro) areas, where the poverty rate fell from 17.1 percent
in 1990 to
14.6 percent in 2000. Despite this improvement, over 400 nonmetro
counties (of a total of 2,308) still had high poverty rates of
20 percent or more in 2000.
High poverty frequently occurs among specific ethnic groups or
in certain geographic areas, but the factors affecting poverty
differ within these contexts. The diversity within high-poverty
areas means that there is no single recipe for prosperity. Strategies
to improve the economic well-being of rural residents in such areas
will differ based on individual and community needs. Some high-poverty
areas have low labor force participation rates and could benefit
from job training and job development. Others have a high share
of female-headed families with children, and programs that provide
child care and secure child support would help defray child care
costs and open up employment opportunities. Education and training
programs could help high-poverty areas with particularly low educational
levels to boost the skills of their workers. The local economic
context is typically more difficult and limiting for minority poor
persons than for poor non-Hispanic Whites.
For the most part, areas of high poverty are of long standing, with conditions
stemming from a complex of social and economic factors rather than from personal
events, such as temporary job layoffs or loss of a spouse. This article identifies
a typology of high-poverty counties that reflect racial/ethnic and regional
differences in major characteristics such as education, employment, family
structure, incidence of disability, and language proficiency that are relevant
to programs of poverty alleviation. Of the 444 nonmetro counties classified
as high-poverty counties in 2000 (based on 1999 income), three-fourths reflect
the low income of racial and ethnic minorities and are classified as Black,
Native American, or Hispanic high-poverty counties. The remaining quarter of
high-poverty counties are mostly located in the Southern Highlands, and the
poor are predominantly non-Hispanic Whites.
Defining Poverty
and High-Poverty Counties
The statistical measure of poverty was developed by the
Social Security Administration in 1964 and, with slight
revisions, has been widely used since then. The measure
is based on the income of families and of persons living
alone or with nonrelatives. The concept is not applied
to persons living in institutions (such as prisons, nursing
homes, or long-term hospitals), college dormitories, and
military barracks. The income threshold separating poor
from nonpoor varies depending on the number and age of
persons in a family and is adjusted annually to reflect
changes in the value of the dollar. For example, the 1999
poverty threshold was $8,667 for a person under age 65
living alone or not in a family; $11,214 for a family of
two under age 65; and $16,985 for a couple with two children
under age 18.
This article presents a typology of high-poverty counties
that reflects racial/ethnic and regional differences in
the character of these counties.
High-poverty counties are defined here as nonmetro counties with a poverty
rate of 20 percent or more based on 1999 income reported in the 2000
Census. This definition is consistent with the Census Bureau practice
of identifying poverty areas. Of the 444 nonmetro counties (based on
the 1993 Office of Management and Budget nonmetro definition) classified
as high-poverty counties in 2000, three-fourths reflect the low income
of racial and ethnic minorities. Black (210 counties), Hispanic (74 counties),
or Native American (40 counties) high-poverty areas are identified by
one of two conditions: (1) over half of the poor population in the county
is from one of these minority groups or (2) over half of the poor population
is non-Hispanic White, but it is the high poverty rate of a minority
group that pushes the county’s poverty rate over 20 percent. For
example, Alabama’s Crenshaw County has a poverty population that
is 55 percent non-Hispanic White and 44 percent Black. The poverty rate
for Whites is 17 percent, but the 39-percent poverty rate of Blacks pushes
the overall county poverty rate above 20 percent. The Southern Highlands
high-poverty areas (93 counties) are located in this part of the country
and the poor are predominantly non-Hispanic White. The remaining 27 high-poverty
counties fall outside the definition of racial/ethnic minority and Southern
Highlands county types.
The typology of high-poverty counties used here is based on county-level
data. Once the high-poverty counties are identified, comparisons among
high-poverty types are made for persons or households within the county
by poverty level, education, employment, family structure, incidence
of disability, and language proficiency.
Black High-Poverty Counties
Of all high-poverty counties, 210 were characterized by the low
income of their Black residents. These counties, with
nearly 5 million population, lie in the old plantation belt of the southern
coastal plain, especially from southern North Carolina through Louisiana. Thirty-nine
percent of Blacks in these counties had poverty-level income, a proportion
well above that of Blacks in nonmetro counties without high poverty (28 percent)
or in metro areas (24 percent). Among conditions associated with poverty, nonmetro
counties with high Black poverty stand out most prominently in the fact that
a third of all poor children under age 18 were in female-headed households
with no husband present. This proportion is much higher than that found in
other types of high-poverty areas, and is double that in nonmetro counties
without high poverty.
In general, poverty is dramatically higher in female-headed households with
children, no husband present, than it is in other household types. In nonmetro
America as a whole, such households had a poverty incidence of 42 percent,
compared with 10 percent for all other households with minor children. It is
difficult for female-headed families to exit poverty, unless they receive child
support, given the lower average wages of women and the lack of other wage
earners in such families.
Black high-poverty counties also have a higher proportion of households without
a motor vehicle (12.5 percent) than other high-poverty county types and
nonmetro counties without high poverty. In rural and small-town communities
that have little or no public transportation, lack of a motor vehicle can inhibit
access to employment and essential services. (See “Rural Governments
Face Public Transportation Challenges and Opportunities” in this issue
of Amber Waves.)
Hispanic High-Poverty Counties
High poverty among Hispanics accounted for the overall high poverty rates in
74 counties. These counties are still concentrated in the traditional Hispanic
areas of the Southwest, especially Texas and New Mexico, but some are now in
Florida, Georgia, Missouri, and Washington, as the Hispanic population has
grown rapidly from immigration and dispersed outside traditional settlement
areas. Within the 74 counties, Hispanic poverty rates averaged 32 percent in
2000, a substantial decline from 41 percent in 1990. This drop was achieved
despite the fact that Hispanics rose as a share of the entire population in
the 74 counties (from 53 percent in 1990 to 58.5 percent in 2000), while the
proportion of higher income non-Hispanic Whites in these counties dropped,
with absolute declines in many counties.
Among all nonmetro Hispanics, a declining share now lives in high-poverty areas,
despite the rising dominance of Hispanics within high-poverty areas where the
poor are mostly Hispanic. Hispanic growth in nonmetro areas outside the high-poverty
areas was so rapid in the 1990s that the share of all nonmetro Hispanics living
in Hispanic high-poverty counties fell from 34 percent to 26 percent. In contrast,
nonmetro Blacks and Native Americans showed only modest shifts away from high-poverty
areas to lower poverty counties.
Hispanic high-poverty counties differ most widely from other high-poverty
counties in the share of people who report that they do not speak English “very
well” (22 percent). Native American high-poverty counties had the next
highest proportion, with 11 percent of residents reporting difficulty with
the English language, but no other group was above 3 percent. Lack of English
proficiency is an obvious hindrance to obtaining higher skilled work. It
is especially prevalent in areas with large recent influxes of immigrants,
such
as along the Mexican border, where it exceeds 40 percent in some nonmetro
counties.
Hispanic poverty counties have a large share of adults (37 percent)
who did not complete high school, a condition created partly
by the high amount of
recent immigration and the limited schooling that many Hispanic immigrants
attained in their home countries. This level is considerably higher than
the 21 percent for Hispanics in nonmetro counties without high
poverty. Hispanic
high-poverty counties have more than double the ratio of high school dropouts
to 4-year college graduates than do nonmetro areas without high poverty.
The earning capacity of women in Hispanic high-poverty areas is particularly
limited, due to their concentration in low-skill, low-wage jobs, reflecting
both low education and the economic structure of these areas. In these
counties, average annual earnings for women working full time and year
round were $16,900
in 1999, compared with $19,400 for women in the next lowest county group
(Native American) and $29,000 in counties with low or moderate poverty.
Native American High-Poverty Counties
The high poverty rate in 40 nonmetro counties resulted from low
income among Native Americans, including Alaskan Natives. These
counties are all located
in areas of either historic tribal presence or 19th-century Indian reservation
resettlement, especially in the Northern Plains, the Southwest, Oklahoma,
and Alaska. The poverty rate of Native Americans in these counties
was 41 percent,
a level greater than that of the dominant minority in other types of high-poverty
counties. The Native American counties did not simply have a greater incidence
of poverty—they also had the highest proportion in deep poverty. A
full fifth of the total population in these areas lived in households with
incomes
below 75 percent of the poverty line. Thus, substantial increases in income
would be required to lift the standard of living of this poorest-of-the-poor
segment of the population to a minimally sufficient level.
Native American high-poverty counties have both the lowest share of people
employed and the lowest share of men employed in full-time, year-round work
compared with other high-poverty counties. In 2000, Native American counties
had only 35 employed persons for every 100 persons of all ages (excluding those
in institutions), compared with 47 workers per 100 persons in nonmetro counties
without high poverty. Only 36 percent of males age 16 and over had full-time,
year-round work in high-poverty Native American counties, versus 47.5 percent
in counties without high poverty.
Native Americans in high-poverty counties are much more likely to be children
in families than older people, compared with high-poverty minorities in other
areas. Native American high-poverty counties have 5.9 poor children under age
18 for each poor person age 65 and over. This compares with ratios of 4.2 for
every poor older person in Hispanic high-poverty counties, and just 2.6 in
nonmetro counties without high poverty. Thus, alleviation of poverty has to
focus more on children and their parents in Native American high-poverty areas
than it does in other areas.
In many Native American high-poverty counties, especially in the Northern
Plains, the White proportion of the population has dwindled as the number
of White farmers and ranchers interspersed among the Indian lands has declined.
The non-Hispanic White share of the population in these areas fell from 44.5
percent in 1990 to 40 percent in 2000. Thus, it is impressive that despite
the serious conditions outlined here, an overall reduction in poverty from
34 to 28 percent was achieved in the Native American areas during the 1990s
even with the diminished presence of the racial group with the highest income.
Profiles
of Selected High-Poverty Nonmetro Counties
Southern
Highlands
Clay County, Kentucky, with 24,000 people, lies in the hill country of eastern
Kentucky, with much of its land in a national forest. The county went through
an early era of salt making and small-scale farming, followed by timber cutting
and coal mining. Today, farming and mining account for just 7 percent of jobs.
The county has some manufacturing, and a sixth of the work force commutes to
jobs in and around London, in the next county. Despite acquiring a new Federal
prison in the 1990s, median household income in Clay County was an exceptionally
low $16,300 in 1999, less than half the nonmetro average. Twenty-two percent
of households received assistance from Supplemental Security Income (four times
the nonmetro average), labor force participation was very low, as was educational
attainment, and 39 percent of persons age 21 to 64 reported having a disability
in 2000. Clay County’s poverty rate of 40 percent is much reduced from
the past, but is nearly the highest in the Highlands, and the nature of its circumstances
is widely echoed in other Highlands counties.
Black
It is fair to say that no rural county saw more economic transformation in the
1990s than Tunica County, Mississippi. In 1990, Tunica had the third highest
poverty rate in the country. This completely rural Delta area continues to be
a land of large cotton, soybean, and rice farms, with a high proportion of Black
residents (70.5 percent in 2000), only a few of whom had a stake in farming,
except as hired workers.
But the biggest nonmetro complex of gambling casinos in the entire country was
added to the county in the 1990s. These large, elaborate casino hotels employed
over 14,000 people in 2000, a number far larger than the county’s total
population of 9,200. The casinos can tap nearby Memphis for many customers, but
they have also become destination resorts, with golfing and other attractions.
From 1990 to 2000, the poverty rate for Blacks in the
county fell from an astonishing 71 percent to 41 percent (but with no drop for
Whites, at 15 percent). Obviously, the decline is good news; however, the median
county household income of $23,300 was still more than $10,000 below the national
nonmetro average. Longstanding high disability rates, low educational levels,
and high rates of child poverty associated with one-parent households do not
disappear in a few years, even with a boom of the magnitude of Tunica County’s.
Hispanic
Crosby County, Texas, is an example of a type of Hispanic high-poverty area that
has evolved in the West Texas Plains. In many cotton counties there, farmers
began extensive use of irrigation after World War II, tapping the Ogallala Aquifer.
Historically, these areas had been highly non-Hispanic White in population. Irrigation
greatly increased crop yields, but created a need for much more labor. Hispanic
workers were brought in for such tasks and soon settled permanently. As farms
in the region have become larger but fewer in recent decades, the non-Hispanic
population declined, while the Hispanic population increased. The result has
been a major change in ethnic makeup. In Crosby County, Hispanics comprised just
6 percent of the population in 1950. Since then, the non-Hispanic population
has fallen by 60 percent, while Hispanics have grown by 500 percent and now make
up
nearly half (49 percent) of the total population of 7,000.
Counties such as Crosby have conflicting forces shaping the poverty rate. On
the one hand, the population with the lowest incomes (Hispanics) is becoming
an ever-larger share of the total, and its income level thus plays a growing
role in determining the overall poverty rate. On the other hand, the poverty
rate among Hispanics in the county fell during the 1990s from 50 percent to 39
percent. The rate among non-Hispanic Whites was
15 percent in 2000, a small increase. The county’s overall poverty rate
declined modestly in the decade from 29.5 to 28 percent. Although farming remains
the dominant industry in Crosby County, Hispanics, who make up nearly half of
the population, operate only 1 percent of the farms. Texas Plains Hispanics have
not yet gained a significant proprietary role in the agricultural industry, either
as owners or tenants. Their educational levels are much higher than in the past,
but their welfare increasingly depends on local economies that lack enough growth
of other work opportunities to offset the loss of farm jobs.
Native American
Todd County, South Dakota, is coextensive with the Rosebud Sioux Reservation,
one of a number of Native American reservations in the northern Great Plains.
The county’s very high poverty rate of 48 percent in 2000 reflects the
serious financial circumstances among the nearly seven-eighths of the county’s
9,000 residents who are Native American. Median annual earnings of men working
year-round, full-time were $21,000, a third below the national average. The land
is not suitable to sustain the population from agriculture, the location is remote
from urban areas (whether viewed as markets or accessible job centers), and an “export
industry” economy is largely lacking. Over half of all employed people
work in education, health services, social services, and public administration,
twice the national average. The high poverty level in 2000 persisted despite
the opening of a casino and motel.
Poverty has proven much more intractable in the Northern Plains Native American
counties than in high-poverty areas elsewhere. All of the Plains Native American
high-poverty counties had poverty rates in 2000 that were either somewhat higher
or nearly as high as in 1970. One bright development has been the creation of
tribal colleges, such as Sinta Gleska University in Todd County. And the Rosebud
Nation, like other tribes, is developing
wind-derived “green” electricity, one natural resource that the area
may have in abundance.
High Poverty in the Southern Highlands
Of the high-poverty counties not classified as Black, Hispanic, or Native American,
the great majority (93) are in the Southern Highlands. Most are in the Allegheny
and Cumberland Plateau country of Kentucky and West Virginia, but others are
in the Ozark Plateau and Ouachita Mountains, west of the Mississippi River.
Racial and ethnic minorities in these counties are few, and the vast majority
of the poor are non-Hispanic Whites.
Poverty in the Southern Highlands is chronic. Historically, the region’s
topography offered limited potential for commercial farming, few urban centers
emerged, education lagged, and much of the area was subject to periods of boom
and bust in the logging and mining industries. The modern era has brought improvements,
with poverty much reduced since 1960. But the remaining high-poverty counties
share several conditions that contribute to income remaining below the poverty
level for more than a fifth of the population.
One feature that stands out in the Southern Highlands high-poverty counties
is that 31 percent of people age 21-64 report having a disability. This is
a higher incidence than that found in any of the other high-poverty county
groups and more than one-half higher than that in counties without high poverty
(20 percent). Some disabilities stem from mining-related injuries or diseases,
but many of the counties with high rates are not mining areas. Not all of the
disabilities are work limiting, but their high prevalence restricts the potential
for education and employment opportunities alone to reduce Southern Highlands
poverty.
Despite strides in educational attainment, the high-poverty Southern Highlands
counties retain a ratio of 3.5 high school dropouts to each 4-year college
graduate. This is 2-½ times the ratio in nonmetro counties without high
poverty and is also higher than that in any of the minority high-poverty county
groups. Many young people in the Southern Highlands who have attained advanced
education have moved elsewhere for economic opportunity. The Southern Highlands
high-poverty counties also match Native American areas in the low share of
men (36 percent) who are employed in full-time, year-round work.
Only 27 high-poverty counties fall outside the classification
of Black, Hispanic, Native American, or Southern Highlands.
Fifteen are thinly settled farming
areas in the northern Great Plains, where income levels can vary widely from
year to year depending on wheat and cattle prices and output. Two others
are the only high-poverty counties where Asians are over half
of the poor.
Concentration of Minority Poor
Among poor people living in nonmetro America, minority populations are much
more likely than non-Hispanic Whites to live in areas where the overall level
of poverty is high. Nearly half of all nonmetro poor Blacks and Native Americans
live in high-poverty areas, as do nearly a third of all poor Hispanics. By
contrast, only an eighth of poor non-Hispanic White households live in a
milieu of widespread poverty, notwithstanding the regional concentrations
in the Southern
Highlands. The local economic context, thus, is typically more difficult
and limiting for minority poor persons than for poor non-Hispanic Whites.
Conclusion
All types of high-poverty counties have multiple characteristics on which
they differ adversely from counties with less poverty. Virtually all (94
percent)
of these counties reflect historic geographical concentrations of minority
or Southern Highlands populations. Widespread poverty limits the tax base
and, where chronic, may impose a poverty of services. But each type of
high-poverty
county has its own signature poverty-related characteristics. It is essential
to recognize these typically deep-rooted distinctions and their significance
if low-income problems are to be addressed successfully in Federal and other
programs. High poverty is high poverty, but the context in which it exists
varies.
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