Saturday, September 24, 2011
Poverty pervades the suburbs
This article written by Tami Luhby discusses the shift of poverty concentration from rural areas into the suburbs. Suburbs now hold the majority of poverty in the U.S. 15.4 million people live below the poverty line in suburbs today, an increase of 11.5% from last year. The article goes into further detail of how this is a result of frictional changes in job locations as people started moving away from cities into suburbia, and were in need of low wage workers to sustain our modern day suburbs in the U.S.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It is surprising that most of the poverty of this country come from the suburb instead of rural area.
ReplyDeleteThe people living in the edge may have to face more pressure than people thought, both economic and psychological. Proper policy is needed for property, such taxing benifit or job finding.
I agree with Sijia that it is really surprising that suburb's have such a high poverty rate. It makes it even more scary since the economy is so shaky that this number could continue to rise and cause other problems with social security and welfare. Both of which are big issues that the government is taking on now. It's a crazy uncertain road that I hope works out for the best for the people in poverty and our economy.
ReplyDeleteThe current recession has caused a complete paradigm shift in how we envision the poor in America. Tent cities have sprung up in formerly more affluent areas, and middle class families lose their homes amid job loss and foreclosure. I appreciate the fact that this article points out that social services in suburban areas are ill-equipped to handle this sort of poverty. When poverty shifts its location, it is imperative that these sorts of services follow. It has been seen multiple places that these services are more effective in relieving poverty than policies from above.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that suburbs now have the largest amount of people living in poverty is a surprising fact. Growing up in a suburb of Chicago, it was always assumed the amount of impoverished people was much greater in the city than in the surronding suburbs. This article makes me rethink all of my preconceptions. As the article pointed out, many suburbanites think the same way I do, leading to a lack of assisstance provided to those who need it in the area. Overall, attention needs to be paid to the impoverished in the suburbs and programs to assist them need to be set up and run better.
ReplyDelete