SNAPSHOTS OF SOCIAL CHANGE
JUNE 28, 2006:
IS POVERTY MORE COMMON IN RURAL AREAS?
Is poverty more common in rural areas? This graph plots the percentage of people living in poverty (vertical axis) against population density — number of people per square mile — for about 3,000 U.S. counties (not including Alaska and Hawaii). Each data point represents one county, with a size proportional to its population. The down-to-right regression line offers a simple answer to our question: Yes, poverty rates do tend to be higher in the more rural (low density) counties. Average poverty rates decline as density or “urban-ness” increases.
Regression lines on scatter plots draw attention both to overall patterns, and to the exceptions to those patterns. For example, we can see that among the large bubbles marking high-density urban counties on the right side of the graph, poverty rates appear to be rising again. Thus, it seems better to conclude that poverty is more common in rural areas and in cities, while being less common in places of in-between density (roughly 100 to 1,000 people per square mile). The poorest rural counties have poverty rates higher than any city, however.
If we separate the 3,000 counties into four geographical regions, similar down-to-right trends appear within each region. Details are different, however. Poverty rates decline least steeply in the Northeast. They start highest and decline most steeply in the South. In the Northeast, despite the weak down-to-right overall trend, the highest poverty rates occur in cities with more than 10,000 people per square mile. Much higher poverty rates occur in the South, particularly in rural counties with 10 to 100 people per square mile. Extreme poverty in the Midwest and West tends to happen at even lower densities, below 10 people per square mile. What lies behind these regional patterns?
Our third graph revisits the regional scatter plots, but this time adding another dimension: ethnicity. Different symbols mark counties where more than 30% of the population is black, or Hispanic, or Native American. (Some counties meet more than one of these criteria, in which case the symbols overprint — for example the Bronx, 48% black and 36% Hispanic, seen at upper right in the Northeast plot.)
With ethnicity in the picture, we can now see that none of the rural Northeastern counties have large minority populations, nor do any of them have very high poverty. Among the scatter of blue dots (denoting mostly white non-Hispanic populations), there is a mild drift down to right — poverty rate decreasing slightly, as density rises. Northeastern cities, on the other hand, include several with large black and/or Hispanic populations. Among these cities, poverty rises with density.
Something quite different shows up in the Midwest: very poor, very rural Native American areas. Other Midwest counties follow a down-to-right trend, but the extreme poverty of these Native areas sets them apart. A few similar areas show up in the West, which in addition contains many rural and relatively (though less extremely) poor Hispanic areas.
The South presents the most heterogeneous picture. A large number of rural counties in the South have substantial black populations, a pattern not seen elsewhere. Many of these places, and also some rural Hispanic areas, have high rates of poverty comparable to those of Indian reservations in the Midwest or West.
These graphical views give some indication of how quickly a simple question — Is poverty more common in rural areas? — becomes complicated as we search for good answers. Variations among regional graphs also hint at how widely the social meaning of “rural” life can vary from one place to the next.
Author
Snapshots of Social Change is written by Lawrence Hamilton, a Senior Fellow with the Carsey Institute and Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire ( http://pubpages.unh.edu/~lch ).