Exploring the Nature of Rural Poverty in the United States
Aaron S. Robertson, MSM
Cardinal Stritch University
April 2018
Table of Contents
Abstract
Introduction
Literature Review
Interviews with Three Professionals Knowledgeable on the Subject
Analysis of the Interviews and Alignment with the Literature
Further Discussion and Analysis
The urban-rural conundrum, and attempting to solve the issue of rural poverty
Implications for Further Research
Conclusions
Bibliography
Appendix A: Interview with Elizabeth Knapp
Appendix B: Interview with Cecilia Dever
Appendix C: Interview with Ginny Tillman
Abstract
Employing a combination of academic research, recent news articles and current events, original interviews with several experts and practitioners in the field, and his own reflections and observations, the author explores the subject of rural poverty in the United States, ultimately arriving at several potential solutions that, when combined, may significantly diminish the problem.
Keywords: rural poverty, rural poverty in the United States, urban poverty
Exploring the Nature of Rural Poverty in the United States
Introduction
The genesis of this paper goes back to the summer of 2017, with its first rendition completed and submitted as a course assignment later that fall as part of the author’s pursuit of a Ph.D. in leadership from Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Building upon that initial research and exploration of the subject, this expanded April 2018 rendition includes excerpts from two new interviews with Dr. Linda M. Lobao and Dr. Julie N. Zimmerman, rural sociologists with Ohio State University and University of Kentucky, respectively. The conversations were conducted by phone in March 2018. A greatly expanded bibliography, along with additional news accounts and personal observations and reflections, are also included, among other items.
The aim of the paper is to explore and grapple with the subject of rural poverty in the United States. As will be argued throughout the paper, rural poverty appears to be a subject that is barely given mention, either in research or in everyday life. To this point, when this author announced to one of his professors and several of his classmates during the summer of 2017 that he would like to take up the subject of rural poverty as a research initiative, he was met with a somewhat surprised shock by all.
What is rural poverty? Why is the subject seemingly awarded little to no attention, yet its wrath is devastating enough to have brought Philip Alston, the United Nations (UN) special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, to the United States in recent months to tour impoverished areas across the country, both rural and urban? Among the stops on his tour were Butler and Lowndes counties in Alabama, in a region known as the state’s Black Belt (Pilkington, 2017; Sheets, 2017). In these parts, “…residents often fall ill with ailments like E. Coli and hookworm – a disease of extreme poverty long eradicated in most parts of the U.S. – in part because they do not have consistently reliable access to clean drinking water that has not been tainted by raw sewage and other contaminants” (Sheets, 2017, para. 7). Who is affected by rural poverty? What are possible solutions to solving the problem, or at least greatly easing it? The paper will seek to address these and other questions.
Literature Review
“Rural poverty and rural issues in general remain invisible in the United States to the urban majority,” contends Lauren Gurley in the opening sentence of the abstract accompanying her article, “Who’s Afraid of Rural Poverty? The Story Behind America’s Invisible Poor,” appearing in the May 2016 issue of the American Journal of Economics and Sociology (p. 589). Why is this the case? How is this the case? Perhaps a good starting point to addressing these and other meaningful questions rests in the fact that there appears to be no solid working definition of rural.
Gurley explains that there is, “...no clear official definition of ‘rural,’ only a negative definition of what is not urbanized. This reveals not only the reason why rural spaces are not a distinct locus of concern, but also why the United States has never had a coherent rural policy” (p. 594). Gurley (2016) continues on this point by quoting Dr. Ann Tickamyer, a professor of rural sociology at Pennsylvania State University (Pennsylvania State University, College of Agricultural Sciences, 2017), in an interview that she gave to Gurley on February 8, 2016: “We have policy on agriculture. We have policy on various industries. We have a lot of policy. But rural is always this sort of residual category…We don’t specifically focus on rural areas to make policy. It’s always how some other policy affects a rural area” (Tickamyer, 2016, quoted in Gurley, 2016, p. 594). Furthermore, Dr. Linda M. Lobao, a professor of rural sociology at Ohio State University (Ohio State University, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, 2017), quoted by Gurley (2016) from a 2015 interview she gave to Gurley, adds, “What is rural in Ohio is very different to what is rural in South Dakota…In Ohio, any place in the state, you could get to a major metro area within an hour or so. That’s true of New England and East Coast, as well, whereas out in the West it’s not” (Lobao, 2015, quoted in Gurley, 2016, p. 593).
Indeed, very few rural areas are even close to being nearly identical in nature, with many of them vastly different. In her 1999 seminal work, Worlds Apart: Why Poverty Persists in Rural America, Dr. Cynthia M. Duncan, a sociologist at the University of New Hampshire (University of New Hampshire, Discovery Program, 2018), shared the experiences of residents in three rural communities, each one truly distinct in character. Duncan assigned made-up names to each community in order to mask their true identities – “Blackwell” is situated in Appalachian coal country; “Dahlia” is located in the Mississippi Delta; and “Gray Mountain” is in northern New England (Summers, 2000; Dyk, 2016). Dyk (2016), in a review of Duncan’s 2015 follow-up second edition with the slightly different title of, Worlds Apart: Poverty and Politics in Rural America, notes about the original 1999 work, “…the pressing issues identified in the three communities: rigid classes and corrupt politics (Blackwell), racial segregation and planter control (Dahlia), and equality and civic involvement (Gray Mountain.)” (p. 661).
Adding further complications to this lack of an official definition of rural and the vast differentiation among rural communities was the absence of interest in the examination of rural life by social theorists and researchers when the discipline of sociology was being formalized and codified in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Gurley (2016) points to a strong urban bias among the major social theorists of that time, including Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber, all of whom were preoccupied by the onset of rapid urbanization, largely the result of the Industrial Revolution. Gurley left out German philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel (1858-1918), whose life, times, and work are of interest to this author. This passage from his 1903 essay, “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” is arguably typical of the kinds of analysis and literature that dominated the day. In this essay, Simmel explores the growing alienation felt by the individual in large urban settings as the result of societal and market forces:
What is essential here as regards the economic-psychological aspect of the problem is that in less advanced cultures production was for the customer who ordered the product so that the producer and the purchaser knew one another. The modern city, however, is supplied almost exclusively by production for the market, that is, for entirely unknown purchasers who never appear in the actual field of vision of the producers themselves. Thereby, the interests of each party acquire a relentless matter-of-factness, and its rationally calculated economic egoism need not fear any divergence from its set path because of the imponderability of personal relationships. This is all the more the case in the money economy which dominates the metropolis in which the last remnants of domestic production and direct barter of goods have been eradicated and in which the amount of production on direct personal order is reduced daily. Furthermore, this psychological intellectualistic attitude and the money economy are in such close integration that no one is able to say whether it was the former that effected the latter or vice versa. (Bridge and Watson, eds., 2002 [Simmel, 1903], pp. 12-13)The major theorists named so far were all European – Marx, Weber, and Simmel were German, and Durkheim was French. Their collective focus on rapid urbanization throughout Europe in the shadow of the Industrial Revolution, in turn, came to have a strong influence on scholars here in the United States as American sociology was starting to come together. Gurley (2016) goes on to note that the University of Chicago, which became a powerhouse for sociological study in the 1920s and 30s, “…centered nearly exclusively on the metropolis” (pp.590-591), and, “…utilized the city of Chicago as a laboratory for the development of the discipline” (p. 591).
Despite the initial surge of urban focus in sociology, though, Gurley (2016) notes, quoting Lobao, “…from 1890 to 1920, there arose a ‘small,’ but ‘vibrant’ contingent of rural sociologists at Penn State, University of Wisconsin Madison, University of Kentucky, Cornell University, Ohio State University, and University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana” (Gurley, 2016, p. 592; Lobao, 2015, quoted in Gurley, 2016, p. 592). However, this apparently was not enough to propel rural concerns into the mainstream, causing them to forever lie at the margins (Gurley, 2016). As time went on, many of these rural research departments were merged into other departments, schools, and colleges, their once-blatantly apparent names and focuses tucked away from public view (Gurley, 2016).
Combined, all of these factors – not having a clear definition of rural, the preoccupation of the founding theorists and researchers of sociology with urban concerns, and the tucking away of the few once-standalone rural sociology departments from the public eye, have contributed to many urban-dwellers not being aware that these issues – and people – exist. But they do exist, and the challenges are staggering. Wilson (2017) notes that, “The number of rural Americans living in poverty has skyrocketed in recent years amidst an economic evolution that has cost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and mining jobs” (para. 1). He continues by explaining that even though urban centers have also seen an increase in poverty rates, these rates are lower by comparison, and these areas have typically seen faster recoveries. Wilson (2017) also makes this noteworthy distinction, explaining, “The difference is that the increase in poverty in urban counties happened almost entirely during and after the recession. The increase in poverty in rural counties began around the turn of the century, and has been exacerbated by the recession” (para. 3). In any case, we know that, “At the turn of the century, about 1 in 5 rural counties had a poverty rate higher than 20 percent. Today, about one in three rural counties – 657 counties – have similarly high rates of poverty…” (Wilson, 2017, para. 6).
Finally, the overall problem of rural poverty is exacerbated by three additional factors: the phenomenon of urban normativity; a misbelief that the cost of living is lower in rural areas; and even something as seemingly minute as our collective word usage when going about our daily lives. Urban normativity is the presumption that what is urban is somehow normal, or the norm, while anything other than the urban is seen as odd, or out of the mainstream; out of place (L. Lobao, personal communication, March 7, 2018; J. Zimmerman, personal communication, March 16, 2018). Because of this urban normativity, “We take policies and programs with an urban frame of reference and impose them on rural populations” (J. Zimmerman, personal communication, March 16, 2018). Examples of this include urban standards often being imposed on rural housing markets that usually end up not working well, and the consumer price index being based solely on urban data (J. Zimmerman, personal communication, March 16, 2018). There is also a widely-held assumption that the cost of living in rural areas is substantially lower than in urban areas. This false narrative continually fuels a vicious cycle that has essentially become a self-fulfilling prophecy, in the sense that, because we as a society hold this belief, it translates into lower wages and lower Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement payments in these areas (J. Zimmerman, personal communication, March 16, 2018). Finally, our daily word usage can certainly play a role. As Dr. Julie N. Zimmerman, a rural sociologist with the University of Kentucky, explained to this author during a conversation, “When we talk about rural poverty and we say something like, ‘Many are left behind,’ we’re describing a system fault. The system left people behind. But when we say, ‘Many are lagging behind,’ we’re implying that it’s their own fault. They just don’t want to catch up” (personal communication, March 16, 2018).
Interviews with Three Professionals Knowledgeable on the Subject
In order to further deepen this author’s understanding on the subject of rural poverty, he sought to interview at least two practitioners in the field for this study. In the end, he was able to secure interviews with three, all conducted by e-mail.
Two of the interviewees, Elizabeth Knapp and Cecilia Dever, are from Wisconsin. Ms. Knapp serves as manager of Twin Oaks Shelter for the Homeless in Darien, Wisconsin, while Ms. Dever serves as executive director of Community Action, Inc., which, among other programs and resources, runs the Twin Oaks facility. Ms. Knapp and Ms. Dever were asked the same set of questions, and this author received their respective replies on November 1, 2017. In her interview responses, Ms. Dever includes 11 myths about poverty that Dr. Julie N. Zimmerman, a professor of rural sociology at the University of Kentucky (University of Kentucky, College of Arts and Sciences, n.d.), had compiled. In turn, Dever states that she compiled all 11 myths from two separate articles written by Zimmerman (C. Dever, personal communication, November 1, 2017), the titles of which are unknown to this author.
The third interviewee is Ginny Tillman. Ms. Tillman, who serves as the office manager for the Jonesboro, Arkansas branch of Ag Resource Management, is also a distant cousin of this author’s. She is in the business of crop insurance and loans for farmers, and this author looked to her for her expertise in rural economic and social life. Asked a different set of questions, this author received Ms. Tillman’s responses on October 31, 2017.
All three interviews appear at the end of the paper in their entirety as appendices A, B, and C. Following is the set of questions posed to both Ms. Knapp and Ms. Dever. Immediately following this set of questions are the questions posed to Ms. Tillman.
1) What would you identify as similarities between rural poverty and urban poverty?
2) And differences between the two?
3) If you were able to describe a common profile for your clients, what does that profile look like? In other words, is there a “typical” client?
4) Do you often see clients returning?
5) What do you think are stereotypes associated with rural poverty, if any?
6) In your mind, what are some of the biggest challenges facing those living in a rural setting?
7) How do you experience being of service? What does that mean to you?
8) How do you define your service? Personally? As an organization?
1) Based on what you see in your everyday work, describe some of the key attributes of rural social and economic life.
2) What are maybe some stereotypes or over-generalizations associated with farming and the agricultural business?
3) Do you see improvements in economic diversification where you live and work, or is your area/region still largely dependent on agriculture as the primary economic activity?
4) In your mind, what are some of the biggest challenges facing those living in a rural setting?
Analysis of the Interviews and Alignment with the Literature
For starters, all three interviewees cite a lack of available resources as a major contributor to rural difficulties, with Knapp and Dever specifically naming transportation as one of these missing pieces (G. Tillman, personal communication, October 31, 2017; E. Knapp, personal communication, November 1, 2017; C. Dever, personal communication, November 1, 2017).
Tillman explaining that there is a myth or stereotype that farmers are wealthy corroborates conversations this author has had with others in the past who are, or were, farmers or members of farming families. There is a perception that farmers are wealthy because of their vast land and equipment holdings. The reality, however, as Tillman points out, is that these farming families are constantly living and operating under a seemingly never-ending cycle of loans (G. Tillman, personal communication, October 31, 2017).
Knapp, Gurley, and Zimmerman are on the same page in pointing out that, contrary to popular belief, it is not just singles or single mothers experiencing rural poverty, but many two-adult households and families, as well – many more than we as a society are perhaps led to believe (E. Knapp, personal communication, November 1, 2017; Gurley, 2016; Zimmerman, via C. Dever, n.d.).
Gurley (2016) and Zimmerman (via C. Dever, n.d.) are in agreement that the majority of those living in poverty, whether in a rural or an urban setting, are white. Waggoner (2018) further corroborates this, noting, “U.S. census figures show that the poverty rate among blacks was 22 percent in 2016, while it was almost 9 percent among whites. But in sheer numbers, almost 17.5 million whites are classified as living in poverty, compared to 8.7 million blacks” (p. 5A). Waggoner goes on to note that, overall, “The U.S. poverty rate was almost 13 percent in 2016” (p. 5A).
Gurley (2016) and Zimmerman (via C. Dever, n.d.) are also in agreement that rural areas experience higher rates of poverty than urban environments on a consistent basis. This is further confirmed by Wilson (2017). To this point Gurley (2016) notes, citing United States Department of Agriculture statistics, “…since the 1950s, Americans living in non-metropolitan counties have had a higher rate of poverty than those living in metropolitan areas. The poverty rate among rural-dwelling Americans is 3 percent higher than it is among urban-dwellers” (p. 590). The difference is even more startling in the South. She continues on, “In the South, the poorest region of the country, the rural-urban discrepancy is greatest – around 8 percent higher in non-metro areas than metro areas (USDA-ERS 2015)” (Gurley, 2016, p. 590).
Finally, Gurley (2016) and Zimmerman (via C. Dever, n.d.) also appear to find agreement in the original intention, understanding, and design of federal poverty programs to provide temporary assistance, rather than, what is often presumed these days by many, to be a means to move recipients out of poverty. One of these programs, perhaps the largest and most well-known, “food stamps,” has its roots in rural America. Gurley (2016) reminds us that,
…many people today do not realize that “food stamps,” a critical component of the urban social safety net, and initially a part of President Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” were originally a farm subsidy intended specifically for rural communities. As a program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food Stamp Act of 1964 was drafted in order to aid agrarian communities, and in many ways to ameliorate rampant poverty in Appalachia and the Deep South. It was able to survive for decades in Congress based on support from a coalition of northern Democrats who favored the welfare state and southern Democrats who regarded food stamps as a method of solving the problem of surplus agricultural production. (pp. 596-597)
Further Discussion and Analysis
The urban-rural conundrum, and attempting to solve the issue of rural poverty
For this author, the solution, or solutions, to easing rural poverty, pose an interesting puzzle, one that he has been grappling with for nearly a year now. When we as a society think of an urban environment, we think of a densely-populated area with a plethora of resources – employment, housing, food, transportation, services, manufactured goods – readily available to the population there. Rural, then, is the antithesis of urban. When we think of a rural setting, we as a society understand it to be a scarcely-populated area, with few resources scattered over a wide area. According to this logic, then, either those living in a rural setting should simply move to an urban environment, or we as a society should fill these rural areas in with cities. But we know that urban areas are grappling with poverty, as well, and that filling rural areas in with cities and all of the resources that come with them is simply impractical – and even pointless to some degree, since we have established that urban poverty exists, as well. Furthermore, as Dr. Linda M. Lobao explains,
Characteristics of the rural population tend to explain the cause of rural poverty. If you moved the rural population to an urban environment, they’d still have large poverty rates, and they would stand out as different from the urban population. One potential key advantage: White men may have the upper hand when it comes to job prospects if you moved them from a rural environment to an urban setting, but they’ll lag behind in education. (L. Lobao, personal communication, March 7, 2018)What then, is the solution, or solutions, to this challenge?
Businesses and organizations wanting to voluntarily come to a rural environment from an urban one is difficult to impossible to imagine. The incentive for businesses and organizations of all types to want to operate in an urban environment is resources readily available and in close proximity – workers, customers, suppliers, transportation, reliable internet and power grid, and so on. With resources scarce and population scattered widely, a move to a rural area is not attractive from a business standpoint. Likewise, businesses and organizations springing up organically in these rural areas is nearly impossible to imagine, as well, for the same exact reason – there are few to no resources available. If it were easy to start and maintain a business in a rural area, more of this would have been done a long time ago, and this discussion would take on a different form today.
Solving, or at least greatly easing, rural poverty, is going to require a robust package of incentives and strategies coming from different sources working in concert, and some of these ideas have already been utilized in the past, to some success.
For starters, at the local, state, and federal government levels, tax and financing incentives could be offered to businesses for relocating, or starting in, rural areas. Orejel (2017), an assistant professor in history at Wilmington College, writing for Dissent Magazine, discusses the case of Appanoose County, Iowa. This county experienced tremendous economic growth in the 1960s and 70s in large part due to various tax and financial incentives being offered, including, among other tradeoffs to further entice businesses, the updating of utilities and the resurfacing of roads. He goes on to note that, “…Appanoose County acquired six major new industries, including a branch plant of Union Carbide, and added close to 1,900 new industrial jobs – when the total county population numbered only around 15,000” (Orejel, 2017, para. 8). It should be noted, though, that these types of incentive packages are not without some inherent risks, and so it is important to structure deals like these as carefully as possible. Dr. Linda M. Lobao cautions, “Tax abatements may work in the short term, but they ultimately only cause jobs to keep moving around. Here in the Columbus [Ohio] area, companies keep moving around from suburb to suburb” (L. Lobao, personal communication, March 7, 2018).
Governments, along with industry, should also continue to focus on expanding broadband internet access to rural areas as a means to bolster educational and business opportunities. Progress is certainly being made, but there remains room for improvement. Perrin (2017), writing for the Pew Research Center, notes that, “Nearly two-thirds (63%) of rural Americans say they have a broadband internet connection at home, up from about a third (35%) in 2007…” and that, “Rural Americans are now 10 percentage points less likely than Americans overall to have home broadband; in 2007, there was a 16-point gap between rural Americans (35%) and all U.S. adults (51%) on this question” (Perrin, 2017, para. 2). The Federal Communications Commission, through a Web site hosted at Broadband.gov, offers suggestions and resources for rural communities seeking to build and present a business case to internet companies for why they should consider expanding operations into those communities (Broadband.gov, n.d.).
In this author’s hometown of Muskego, Wisconsin, a rural-urban interface – in other words, a suburban community where urban and rural meet (J. Zimmerman, personal communication, March 16, 2018), some work remains on internet access. This author currently serves as president of Muskego’s library board, and the library has a number of portable internet hotspot devices that can be loaned out to patrons. An immensely popular item, these mobile hotspots are often loaned out to students and others in the rural parts of the city where internet access is limited to virtually nonexistent. It is said that currently, according to Dr. Kelly Thompson, superintendent of the Muskego-Norway School District, 91% of district students have access to consistent, high-speed internet access (K. Thompson, personal communication, March 21, 2018). This author, who also serves as a board member of the Muskego Area Chamber of Commerce & Tourism, is also aware of a growing number of complaints by residents and small business owners where it concerns available options for internet service providers. That this author is aware of, there are only two major providers in the area, and neither company seems interested in wanting to invest any more into their respective infrastructures here in Muskego, despite it arguably being in their best interests to do so. Muskego, overall, is a wealthy community, and it is currently experiencing an economic boom, with many new businesses opening shop; new subdivisions and condominium developments springing up; and a new middle school under construction.
Like issues of accessibility in regard to internet access, improving landline service in rural areas should also be a priority of governments and industry. Landlines in rural areas typically only allow access within one’s own county, yet half of rural residents work in another county (J. Zimmerman, personal communication, March 16, 2018). The current situation greatly hampers the ability to provide or receive a wide-ranging variety of communications, ranging anywhere from emergency messages of any type to work and business opportunities, and from being able to converse with family and friends in another county to making simple inquires of any kind.
In higher education, coming back to a concern expressed in Gurley’s (2016) work, colleges and universities could create or return to standalone research departments devoted solely to rural life. There can be no doubt that the academy over the years has contributed to this unfortunate “sweep it under the rug” mentality. In Wisconsin, specifically, there is grave concern over what the future may hold for the University of Wisconsin-Extension’s Cooperative Extension program, which has served as a long-time partner to rural communities through trusted advice, educational programming, and vital connections to the state’s university system. The Cooperative Extension program, which maintains local offices in each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, will now be overseen by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This decision, approved by the UW System Board of Regents in a 16-2 vote on November 9, 2017, is part of a broader restructuring of the system that also merges the system’s two-year schools into its four-year institutions. The concern is that the Cooperative Extension program being brought under the oversight of the state’s flagship university, UW-Madison, could potentially pit the two against each other over critical funds and other resources (Barrett, 2017; Kremer, 2017; Wisconsin Public Radio Staff and the Associated Press, 2017). This decision comes at a worrisome time, particularly for family farms in the state. In its Money section on January 30, 2018, the newspaper USA Today, citing a report by Wisconsin Public Radio, noted that, in 2017, Wisconsin’s federal Western District saw 28 farm bankruptcies. This was the highest number of such bankruptcies across the United States (USA Today staff, 2018).
Speaking on the UW-Extension’s offerings more broadly, this author can attest to their value, most recently in his visit to the Realtors Home & Garden Show at the Wisconsin State Fair grounds in West Allis, Wisconsin on March 24, 2018. The UW-Extension had a booth at the show and provided visitors with helpful information on subjects like gardening and the best planting times for certain fruits and vegetables. A number of brochures and other handouts were available for the taking, and several Extension staff members were on hand to answer questions and provide consultation.
Service clubs throughout the country can devote more of their time, attention, and resources to rural concerns. Because many members of these service clubs hail from large cities and suburban areas, there’s somewhat of a double-benefit here: the rural areas benefit economically from this added attention and service, while the urban-dwelling service club members advance their education and awareness on the issue so that it is discussed and reflected upon more in their own communities.
From a business and leadership development standpoint, Dr. Linda M. Lobao asks some thought-provoking questions: “How can you build human capital? Promote self-development? Have kids graduate from college and then come back to their hometown? Market their towns as tourist attractions with bed and breakfast establishments, theaters, art galleries, etc. Empower local people?” (L. Lobao, personal communication, March 7, 2018). While serious food for thought and exciting potential to contemplate, we know that there is currently an uphill battle in this realm. Wilson (2017) explains:
Demographers and economists point to two self-reinforcing trends. Declines in traditional blue-collar jobs that rural America long relied upon have crippled dominant industries, while younger workers, especially those with higher levels of education, have fled rural areas, robbing their communities of the next generation of new business owners. (para. 8)Time and continued effort will tell if these trends can be reversed.
Finally, we as a society can continue to educate both ourselves and one another about rural poverty and rural life. We can begin by recognizing the pervasiveness of urban normativity, and by realizing that the simplest word choices can create division and hence an “other.” As Dr. Julie N. Zimmerman encourages, “See the holistic system. Stop looking at urban and rural as separate. We all have rural ties. Urban areas need rural areas to exist. For lumber for homes. For food. For landfill space. For the most dangerous manufacturing processes” (personal communication, March 16, 2018).
Implications for Further Research
Opportunities for further inquiry into the problem are plentiful in both the quantitative and qualitative realms of research. This author feels that, largely due to time constraints, he only scratched the surface, so to speak, on the subject of rural poverty here. There is an abundance of room for more in-depth interviews, field observations, focus groups, and the compilation of statistics.
For this author, specifically, he would like to continue studying the subject beyond this initial paper, and work to identify ways in which he can take these newfound and future insights, and put them into service for the benefit of others. A good place to start this journey will be by revisiting Gurley’s (2016) work, as there is a plethora of supporting resources found throughout it, both academic and practitioner-oriented in nature, that this author has not yet had much of an opportunity to explore in deeper detail. Additionally, he would like to continue the dialogue with Dr. Linda M. Lobao and Dr. Julie N. Zimmerman, rural sociologists with Ohio State University and the University of Kentucky, respectively. This author enjoyed his conversations with these experts, and both provided him with several resources that he has yet to look into, as well. Ideas that this author is currently exploring to help bring this work into service for the benefit of others include seeking membership in the Rural Sociological Society; partnering with one or more established experts to have a version of this paper published in an academic journal; and designing a talk that can be presented to audiences, such as to local service clubs and business organizations, the local library, or this author’s campus community. With a diverse background that brings business and entrepreneurship, academic study, and public service to an intersection, this author is sincerely interested in continuing to work on this important puzzle that affects the lives of so many.
Conclusions
Rural poverty is an issue that appears to be seldom discussed in research or in everyday life. With so many economic and societal challenges plaguing urban life, it can be easy for city dwellers to forget that rural environments – along with their inhabitants – even exist. As previously mentioned, this author was met with responses of surprise by one of his professors and several of his classmates when he mentioned in the summer of 2017 that he would like to take up researching the issue of rural poverty. Acknowledging here that this paper was met with time constraints, the issue is one that this author has developed a genuine interest in, and he would like to continue building his understanding of it, and sharing his findings and ideas for the benefit of others.
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Appendix A: Interview with Elizabeth Knapp, manager of Twin Oaks Shelter for the Homeless in Darien, Wisconsin
What would you identify as similarities between rural poverty and urban poverty?
Many families are in poverty, not just singles. There is generational homelessness.
And differences between the two?
More access to resources in an urban setting (i.e. public transportation to get to and from appointments and not as spread apart).
If you were able to describe a common profile for your clients, what does that profile look like? In other words, is there a “typical” client?
A person at or below 30% of the county median income (CMI). At Twin Oaks in the last year (November 1, 2016 to October 31, 2017), almost 35% have domestic violence in their past.
Do you often see clients returning?
Respondent did not answer.
What do you think are stereotypes associated with rural poverty, if any?
Respondent did not answer.
In your mind, what are some of the biggest challenges facing those living in a rural setting?
Not having enough transportation options. Not enough housing options. Not enough homeless shelters.
How do you experience being of service? What does that mean to you?
Respondent did not answer.
How do you define your service? Personally? As an organization?
Respondent did not answer.
Appendix B: Interview with Cecilia Dever, executive director of Community Action, Inc., which, among other programs and resources, runs the Twin Oaks Shelter for the Homeless in Darien, Wisconsin
What would you identify as similarities between rural poverty and urban poverty?
I would say that both urban and rural poverty consist of a lack of means. Unable to adequately support yourself and/or your family.
And differences between the two?
There most likely would be more resources or support in urban areas. There may be transportation issues in rural areas and it would most likely be less access to resources.
If you were able to describe a common profile for your clients, what does that profile look like? In other words, is there a “typical” client?
I do not believe that there is a typical client. Each person comes with their unique struggles and barriers to overcome. The one consistency at Community Action is that they must have the want and determination to overcome their obstacles in order to be successful.
Do you often see clients returning?
It varies.
What do you think are stereotypes associated with rural poverty, if any?
I like this document regarding myths and rural poverty. Julie N. Zimmerman compiled eleven myths about poverty. I’ve compiled all eleven here from two separate articles. Much of this evolved around welfare reform and what to do about it. Her last contact info is as follows:
Department of Community and Leadership DevelopmentIn your mind, what are some of the biggest challenges facing those living in a rural setting?
500 Garrigus
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40546-0215
jzimm@uky.edu
Myth 1: The majority of the poor live in inner-city neighborhoods.
While poverty rates are highest in inner cities, only 23 percent of those in poverty live there. Overall, poverty rates in rural areas have been and continue to be consistently higher than those found in urban areas, which includes inner cities. In this case, rural areas have the second highest poverty rates of 16.3 percent when compared to urban areas (RSS Task Force 1993:32). In 1990, there were 9 million people in rural areas living in poverty; nearly one in five rural residents. In 1993, in the North Central region, the rural poverty rate stood at 13.6 percent, whereas the poverty rate for urban areas was only 11.4 percent.
Myth 2: Poverty in rural areas looks much like that found in urban areas.
While poverty exists in both urban and rural areas, the characteristics of those living in poverty in these two places are distinctly different. Not only do rural areas have consistently higher rates of poverty than urban places, but those living in poverty in rural areas are more likely to be white and living in two-adult households. Rural areas also have higher rates of persistent poverty and they are dispersed over a larger geographic area. Still, compared to their urban counterparts, those living in poverty in rural areas are more likely to be working.
Myth 3: The poor live off government welfare.
Given the public debates over welfare reform, one would assume that this was indeed the case. However, the majority of those living in poverty do not receive government welfare assistance. Such assistance accounts for only one-quarter of the income of adults living in poverty (O'Hare 1996). For rural areas, participation rates in social service programs are even lower.
Myth 4: Homelessness is an urban problem.
Homelessness in rural areas is often overlooked because it is thought of as an urban issue. An accurate count of the homeless is difficult if not impossible. Estimates of the rural homeless vary from 6.9 percent (Census 1992) to 18 percent (NRHA 1996:3) of the total homeless population. As shelters are a rarity in rural areas, those without a fixed place of residence find shelter in places such as doubling-up with other families, living in abandoned homes, or living in their vehicles at camping facilities. Research suggests that the characteristics of the homeless in rural areas differ from those in urban areas. For example, they are more likely to be white, more likely to be working, and more likely to be two-parent families (Wright and Wright, forthcoming).
Myth 5: Poor families are trapped in a cycle of poverty that few escape.
The population of individuals and households living in poverty is actually a dynamic group. For many, `spells' of poverty are temporary, lasting less than a few years (O'Hare 1996). On the other hand, rural areas have higher rates of persistent poverty than urban areas. Persistent poverty refers to places with poverty rates of 20 percent or more in each census 1960-1990. Persistent poverty tends to be found in particular regions such as Appalachia and the South. In the North Central region, areas of persistent poverty are located primarily in North Dakota, South Dakota and Missouri.
Myth 6: Most of the poor are single mothers and their children.
Single women with children are more likely to be living in poverty, as reflected by their high poverty rates in both rural and urban places. But, in terms of the number of households living in poverty, there are very nearly as many living in two adult households. Only 38 percent of those households living in poverty were single-mother households and 34 percent were in two-adult households. Of the remaining 28 percent, 22 percent either live alone or with non-relatives (O'Hare 1996). For rural areas both in our region and nationally, the percent of those in poverty living in two adult households is much higher. Nationally, 44.4 percent of those in poverty in rural areas in 1990 lived in married couple families (RSS Task Force 1993:32). For the North Central region, husband-wife family configurations comprised 42.3 percent of those in rural poverty in 1993.
Myth 7: The vast majority of the poor are African American or Hispanics.
In contrast to the myth, the majority of those living in poverty in both urban and rural areas are not minorities. Forty-eight percent of those living in poverty in America are white (O'Hare 1996). In 1990, 72.9 percent of those living in poverty in rural areas in the United States were white (RSS Task Force 1993:32). In the North Central region, the rural poor are even more likely to be white, comprising in 1993 more than 90 percent of those in rural poverty, with African Americans comprising 3.7 percent and Native Americans 2.9 percent.
Myth 8: Most people are poor because they do not want to work.
This is perhaps the most tenacious myth of all those discussed here. First of all, many of those living in poverty are not of working age. Many of the poor are elderly and even more are children (about 40 percent) or have a work disability. More importantly, many people living in poverty who are able to work are indeed already employed. Nationally, about 30 percent of the working-age population living in poverty in 1994 were already working (O'Hare 1996). For rural areas, this myth holds even less truth. Nationally, the majority of rural poor families have at least one member employed. For the North Central region in 1993, this also remains true. Of those living in poverty in rural areas, 35.5 percent of families had at least one person working at least part time or part year. Another 25.4 percent had one or more family members working full time-full year. Of the remaining families, almost 24 percent of the rural poor have no working-age family member. This category is predominantly the elderly.
Myth 9: Antipoverty programs are designed to reduce poverty.
A major criticism of federal programs has been that they are not moving people off of welfare. However, this position also assumes that these programs were designed to do this. Until recently, federal poverty programs were designed as a safety net, not as programs to assist individuals out of poverty.
Myth 10: Rural equals agriculture.
Confounding the distance between myth and reality regarding poverty in rural areas is that for many, rural is synonymous with agriculture and farms. Deeply embedded in our nation's history is the image of rural areas as a patchwork of family farms built around tranquil communities. Today, less than 10 percent of the rural population lives on farms and people in rural areas are engaged in a wide range of activities.
In 1992, only 7.6 percent of rural employment was in farming (ERS/USDA 1995:5). Service employment, on the other hand, accounted for 50.6 percent and has experienced the greatest growth over the past two decades. Counties which derive 20 percent or more or their earned income from farming are concentrated in the Great Plains states. However, even in these areas, nonfarm employment still accounts for nearly 80 percent of jobs in the area (ERS/USDA 1995:12).
Myth 11: Poverty rates are particularly low in the Midwest compared to other regions.
In actuality, poverty in the rural North Central region is more likely to be hidden than lower in incidence. Only the South, with 51.2 percent of all rural poverty, has more individuals living in poverty in rural areas. The North Central region is home to 25.8 percent of all people living in poverty in rural areas. As Flora (1992) points out, characteristics such as norms against conspicuous consumption, the ideology that hard work will automatically result in financial growth, and the prevailing view that "we're all just folks" combine to hide what can be large differences in income and wealth within communities.
Finding fair market adequate homes in safe neighborhoods is a big issue.
How do you experience being of service? What does that mean to you?
Support and encouragement.
How do you define your service? Personally? As an organization?
We assist with removing barriers which will assist an individual to become more self-sufficient.
Appendix C: Interview with Ginny Tillman, office manager, Jonesboro, Arkansas branch of Ag Resource Management
Based on what you see in your everyday work, describe some of the key attributes of rural social and economic life.
a. Small communities. Typically, in rural areas, the population is low and occupations are scarce. With little diversity, it’s hard to transition from one job field to another.
b. Intimate relationships. In smaller communities, people are more connected. Essentially, everyone knows everyone due to generation after generation living there.
c. Agriculture is a main occupation. Generally, in rural areas, like northeast Arkansas, farming or anything related to agriculture is a very popular occupation.
d. The importance of continuing a family operation. In a rural area, there is a lot of family operations that have been kept up over generations. Essentially, your family dictates your future. Example, farming for generations and generations, running a small convenient store for years.
What are maybe some stereotypes or over-generalizations associated with farming and the agricultural business?
a. Farmers are rich. Typically, most farmers are living one crop loan to the next, especially with the markets we’ve had the last few years.
b. Farming is easy. Farming is extremely unpredictable and extremely expensive. Farming is not something that you just wake up and decide to do one morning. It takes experience and time to master the art of running a smooth and successful farming operation.
Do you see improvements in economic diversification where you live and work, or is your area/region still largely dependent on agriculture as the primary economic activity?
a. Agriculture is still a primary economic activity. Although Jonesboro is a fairly large town, all the surrounding areas are dependent on farming to provide for their families. It’s just a way of life here, and that’s all some people know.
In your mind, what are some of the biggest challenges facing those living in a rural setting?
a. Lack of jobs and diversification.
b. Lack of resources.
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