Persistent poverty counties have a disproportionate share of people with characteristics associated with low levels of labor force participation.
Although poverty has declined over time in nonmetro areas as a whole, it remains a serious, chronic problem in many nonmetro counties. In 1990, 535 nonmetro counties with poverty rates of 20 percent or more in 1960,1970. 1980, and 1990 were classified as persistent poverty counties. The poverty group represented 24 percent of nonmetro counties, 19 percent of nonmetro population, and 32 percent (2.7 million) of the nonmetro poor in 1990. The 1990 poverty rates ranged from 20 percent to 63 percent with an average of 29 percent, about twice other nonmetro counties.
The persistent poverty counties are heavily concentrated in the South: 83 percent, with disproportionate representation in Appalachia, the Ozark-Ouachita area, and the Mississippi Delta (fig. 19). Others are scattered in areas of the Southwest or Northern Plains. Over 80 percent of Mississippi and Louisana nonmetro counties and 50-60 percent of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, and South Carolina nonmetro counties are persistent poverty counties.
Poverty counties tend to be smaller and have less urban population than many of the county types. Nearly 40 percent of the counties had no people living in towns or small cities in 1990, compared with 34 percent of all-nonmetro counties. Three-fifths of poverty counties were nonadjacent to a metro area. Poverty counties averaged 17,876 people in 1990; population size was smaller in only three other county types--farming, commuting, and transfers-dependent.
The poverty group has disproportionate numbers of economically at-risk people with characteristics that affect their levels of labor force participation. For example, people living in persistent poverty counties in 1990, compared with all-nonmetro counties, were more likely to belong to a minority group (Black, Hispanic, or Native American), live in a female-headed household, lack a high school education, be a high school dropout, and/or have a physical or mental disability (table 10).
In keeping with the higher proportions of disadvantaged people, poverty counties had lower income levels and more pronounced underemployment than most other county types. Per capita income in 1989 lagged the average all-nonmetro per capita income by over $2,500. Similarly, earnings per capita and median family income were the lowest among the types with the exception of the
transfers-dependent counties. Residents relied heavily on transfer payment income; the ratio of $42 of transfer income to every $100 of earned income was exceeded only by the ratio in transfers-dependent counties. The unemployment rate in the persistent poverty counties was 8.5 percent in 1990, considerably above the 6.6 all-nonmetro rate, and the ratio of 39 jobs to every 100 people fell under the all-nonmetro ratio of 47 jobs to every 100 people. Only the transfers-dependent and commuting groups had jobs/population ratios lower than the ratio in the poverty group.
Evidence suggests that the chronic poverty in the persistent poverty counties is directly attributable to the composition and characteristics of the population, although the role of local economies in encouraging chronically high poverty levels is not as clearcut. On the one hand, the high unemployment rate and the lower number of jobs per capita suggest that the economy plays a part in providing insufficient job opportunities. On the other hand, the industrial mix of jobs in persistent poverty counties does not differ substantially from the all-nonmetro pattern, although the shares of jobs in the farming, manufacturing, and government sectors were slightly higher and the share in the services sector was slightly lower. (Poverty counties overlapped fairly heavily with farming (135), manufacturing (119), and nonspecialized (124) counties; but the greatest overlap (233 counties) was with transfers counties.) Jobs grew by about 6 percent from 1979 to 1989, while earnings grew only 0.1 percent. The rate of overall job growth was 5 percentage points under that for all-nonmetro counties (fig. 20). Earnings per job in 1989 were the second lowest of all the county types, suggesting that many of the low-paying jobs were leading to high levels of working poverty. Chronic poverty in the poverty counties involves both a human resources problem and a lack of opportunities for jobs that pay decent wages.
Table 10--Persistent poverty counties: Selected characteristics
Persistent All-
poverty nonmetro
Item Unit counties counties
--------------------------- ------- ------- -------
Counties Number 535 2,276
Population, 1990 Thousands 9,564 50,898
Totally rural, 1993(1,2) Percent 39.2 24.0
Population density, 1990(3,4) Number 29.7 36.3
Population change, 1980-90(4) Percent -1.3 .6
Per capita income, 1989(4) Dollars 11,056 13,580
Per capita transfer income,
1989(4) do. 2,705 2,636
Black population, 1990(5) Percent 21.2 8.0
Poverty population, 1990(5) do. 29.1 18.3
Disable population, 1990(5,6) do. 12.4 10.2
(1) No persons living in towns of 2,500 population or more.
(2) Percentage of counties in group.
(3) Persons per square mile.
(4) Unweighted county averages.
(5) Percent of persons; unweighted county averages.
(6) Persons with a physical or mental health condition
of at least 6 months duration that
limited the kind or amount of work they could do.
Go to: