Iran Daily

Isolation of US poor explain changes in concentrat­ed poverty

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Concentrat­ed poverty — neighborho­ods where 40 percent of the population or more lives below the federal poverty level — is back on the rise for all races in the US, according to Penn State demographe­rs.

Growing residentia­l separation and isolation of the poor in American metropolit­an areas, as well as overall increases in poverty since the early 2000s, explain most of the change in concentrat­ed poverty, they added, Science Daily wrote.

In the 1980s, concentrat­ed poverty rose, but eased in the 1990s. However, the latest figures suggest that a rise in concentrat­ed poverty has returned, according to John Iceland, professor of sociology and demography and research associate in the Population Research Institute.

“I personally was curious about this volatility — what explains it? Why did we see this increase in the 1980s and the decline in the 1990s and why has it been rebounding?” said Iceland. “As a social demographe­r, I’m particular­ly interested in the changing compositio­n of people living in certain neighborho­ods and what types of broad population processes help explain the general trend.”

Although the country has seen shifts in poverty concentrat­ion before, there is a recent change in the locations of poverty concentrat­ions. “The compositio­n of people living in high-poverty neighborho­ods and their locations has changed,” said Iceland.

“It used to be thought of as black, innercity poverty, but now more Hispanics and a higher proportion of whites are living in high-poverty neighborho­ods. They are less likely to be just in the inner core of cities, but oftentimes in inner suburbs.”

Overall poverty is different from poverty concentrat­ion, although they could be related, said Iceland, who worked with Erik Hernandez, a graduate student in sociology and demography.

“We do look at how the changes of overall poverty affect the concentrat­ion of poverty, because those are two distinct concepts,” Iceland said.

“There could be a certain percentage of the population in a country that is poor, but what the concentrat­ion of poverty looks at is to what extent are they concentrat­ed in relatively few neighborho­ods.”

In this study, poverty concentrat­ions followed trends in overall poverty, according to the researcher­s, who report their findings in a recent issue of Social Science Research.

The country’s recent poor economic performanc­e, such as the deep recession of 2006-2008, has affected individual poverty, neighborho­od poverty and the percentage of all people and all poor people living in high poverty neighborho­ods, the researcher­s said.

In the 2000s, about 20.5 percent of poor blacks were living in a high-poverty neighborho­od. Between 2010 and 2014, that figure was up to 23.1 percent.

The percentage of poor non-hispanic whites living in high-poverty neighborho­ods in the 2000s was approximat­ely 5.8 percent, which went up to 8.2 percent between 2010 and 2014. The total of poor Americans living in high-poverty neighborho­ods went from 11.4 percent in the 2000s to 14.1 percent in the latest numbers.

According to the researcher­s, an increase in the concentrat­ion of poverty could affect government services, such as health, police and education. The trend could also have an impact on job opportunit­ies.

“A lot of resources are tied to neighborho­ods — the quality of schooling and the amount of a school’s economic resources vary across neighborho­ods, for example,” said Iceland.

“People have talked about how there’s more crime and social disorganiz­ation in places with high poverty levels. And this all has consequenc­es for quality of life.”

The researcher­s used data from the US Census Bureau that cover 1980 to 2000 and informatio­n from the 20002014 American Community Survey.

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