An Atlas of Poverty in America

One Nation, Pulling Apart 1960–2003

Amy Glasmeier

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415953368
• eBook ISBN: 9781317721420
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Human Geography
• Index: Social Sciences

Persistant poverty has long been one of America's most pressing and intractable problems. According to some estimates, by 2003, almost twenty-five percent of the America's countries had per-capita incomes below one half the national average, high unemployment, low labour force participation rates, and a high dependency on government transfer payments - all measures of economic distress. An Atlas of Poverty in America shows how and where America's regional development patterns have become more uneven, and graphically illustrates the increasing number of communities falling behind the national economic average. Readers will be able to use this Atlas to see how major events and trends have impacted the scope and extent of American poverty in the past half-century:economic globalization, the rise of the sunbelt, decline of the welfare state, and the civil rights movement. Also includes 195 colour maps.

DISTRESSED REGIONS

Appalachia • Mississippi Delta • Border • Rural • Native American Lands • Segregation

Appalachia: A Land Apart in a Wealthy Nation

Appalachia has long been considered one of the poorest regions of the United States. Its rural portions have been persistently mired in poverty for several generations. Many of the region’s communities live in isolation, locked out of the prosperity enjoyed by the rest of the nation over the last forty years.

Appalachia’s three subregions contain counties in thirteen states from New York in the North to Mississippi in the South. Central Appalachia, the most isolated and poorest part of the region, includes parts of West Virginia, Appalachian Kentucky, the southwestern tip of Virginia, and the northwest part of Tennessee’s Appalachian area (Map 68).

Appalachia is home to some of the richest coal mines in the nation (Map 69). Today, one of the most pressing environmental concerns is the mining of coal using a process called “mountain top mining.” Coal companies scrape the top off of mountains and pour the over-burden into valley bottoms, damming and destroying streams. People living adjacent to these locations often lose the use of their wells and sometimes their houses collapse due to underground subsidence.

The Appalachian region’s manufacturing base has begun to crumble. The state of Georgia lost more than 60,000 manufacturing jobs, most of them in rural parts of the state. Similar patterns affect states across the Appalachian region. Since 1996 the region has lost a total of over 400,000 manufacturing jobs (Figure 52). Much of the job loss occurred in the rural parts of the region.

Figure 52. Job displacement by subregion and total, 1996–2003

Map 68. Location of Appalachia and its subregions

Map 69. Coal fields in the Appalachian region

Photo 2. Mountain top mining in West Virginia

Poverty in the Region

Poverty in Appalachia stems from a complex history of regional economic and political exploitation. The region’s poverty rate was once as high as 43% in the 1960s, and still currently exceeds the national poverty rate (Map 70).

Family, Elderly, and Child Poverty

The most vulnerable groups in society are subject to high rates of poverty in Appalachia. The average county family poverty rate is above the national average (18%) (Figure 53). While most elderly in the country live above the poverty line, a significant fraction of the elderly in Appalachia live below the poverty line (Figure 54). In 2000, the average county rate of child poverty in Appalachia was above the national average (Figure 55). In 10% of the region’s counties, one out of three children lived in poverty. Rates of child poverty remain stubbornly high in the central part of Appalachia (Map 71).

Poverty and Race

Average county black poverty is higher than white poverty in the Appalachian region (29% vs. 15%). While white poverty has declined eight percentage points since 1970, black poverty has changed little over the same period (31% vs. 29%) (Figure 56).

Figure 53. Poverty rates for families in Appalachia and the U.S., 1970–2000

Figure 54. Elderly poverty in Appalachia and the U.S., 1970–2000

Figure 55. Percent child poverty in Appalachia and the U.S., 1970–2000

Education

Levels of education in the region have historically been below the national average. The same ho...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contributions to the Atlas
• Contents
• List of Tables, Figures, Maps, and Photographs
• History of the Atlas Project
• How to Read This Atlas
• Basics of Poverty
• Introduction: The Paradox of Poverty in America
• Leved Experiences
• History of Poverty
• Distressed Regions
• History of Poverty Policy
• Sources
• Graphical Sources
• Index