Changing Geography of Poverty, Similar Characteristics of the Poor
Cities and suburbs have come to embody common established roles in discussions about social welfare policy and economic opportunity in metropolitan America. Discussion of poverty typically focuses on central city neighborhoods, whereas suburbs are seen as destinations of economic opportunity. The 2010 Census, however, will show dramatic changes in rates of poverty across urban and suburban neighborhoods that will upset this familiar urban-suburban narrative about poverty and opportunity in metropolitan America.
A preview of these changes can be found in a recent report by the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. While the percentage of Americans living below the poverty line remains much higher in cities than in suburban areas (18.2% versus 9.5% respectively), poverty rates have been rising at a faster rate in many suburbs. The number of poor persons in the suburbs of the 95 largest metropolitan increased by 25% since 2000, compared to a 5.6% increase in the primary cities of those metro areas. Consistent with what we might expect, Brookings Institution research shows that about half of the suburban poor are white, compared to about one-quarter of the poor residing in cities. The characteristics of the urban and suburban poor, however, are strikingly similar in other respects. For example, the share of working poor persons who are working at least part-time is nearly identical in suburbs (50.8%) and primary cities (48.0%). The share of the poor who are foreign born is nearly the same across suburban areas (18.9%) and primary cities (22.3%). Moreover, female-headed families compose quite similar percentages of poor households in cities as in suburbs (29.2% versus 27.5% respectively).
Such findings suggest that rising poverty rates in suburbs may be driven by many of the same economic and demographic factors that have led to rising poverty in cities: the decline of good paying jobs; persistent unemployment; immigration; and the growing number of children being raised in single-parent households. It also suggests that the strategies for reducing poverty and helping low-income, low-skill job-seekers find work may be more similar in suburbs and cities than is typically assumed. Among other supports, working poor families in our metropolitan (and rural) areas need access to job training and job search assistance, affordable housing and child care, earned income tax credits that make work pay better, and food assistance through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as well as through local food banks and pantries. Moreover, these data suggest that there is a greater shared economic fate between cities and their suburbs than is commonly realized. This shared fate demands stronger regional solutions and regional partnerships to promote opportunity and delivery of safety net assistance, rather than the current paradigm of hyper-competitiveness that portrays urban-suburban dynamics as a zero-sum game.