In 2003, 14.2 percent of the population, or 7.5 million people, living
in nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas were poor. This poverty rate has
remained unchanged from 2001 and 2002. In contrast, the metropolitan (metro) poverty
rate was 12.1 percent in 2003, inching up a half percentage point
in each of the last 2 years (11.1 percent in 2001 and 11.6 percent in 2002).
See How is Poverty Defined?
for more information. This continued increase in the metro poverty rate
has narrowed the gap between metro and nonmetro poverty rates to 2.1 percentage
points. While the gap has diminished, the nonmetro rate continues its
historic pattern of being higher than the metro poverty rate.
The higher incidence of nonmetro poverty relative to metro poverty
has existed since the 1960s when poverty rates were first officially
recorded. In the 1980s, the average incidence of poverty was 4.4 percentage points
higher in nonmetro areas than in metro areas; in the 1990s, the average
difference was 2.6 percentage points. During the 1990s, the nonmetro
poverty rate declined fairly steadily from a high of 17.1 percent in
1993 to a record-low rate of 13.4 percent in 2000. Nonmetro poverty had never before
been this low. The decline in poverty during the 1990s was mirrored by
growth in the economy overall. Between 1993 and 2000, the economy grew by 4
percent per year, significantly higher than the average growth rate
of 2.7 percent
during the 20 years prior to 1993. With the recession in 2001, nonmetro
poverty went up to 14.2 percent where it has since remained.
Regional Patterns of Rural Poverty
While the overall rate of nonmetro poverty is higher than metro poverty,
the difference in nonmetro and metro poverty rates varies significantly
across regions. In the Midwest, the metro poverty rate is actually higher
than the nonmetro rate. In contrast in the South, the nonmetro poverty
rate at 17.7 percent is almost 5 percentage points higher than the metro
rate. The difference in poverty rates in the South is particularly important
for the overall nonmetro poverty rates because close to 44 percent of
the nonmetro population live in this region. In the West, with approximately
15 percent of the nonmetro population, the nonmetro poverty rate was 14.6
percent while the rate for the metro population was 12.3 percent.
Race, Ethnicity, and Rural Poverty
Poverty rates by race reveal large differences with non-Hispanic Blacks
having the highest incidence of nonmetro poverty at a rate of 30.5 percent.
Nonmetro Hispanics also had a high rate at 25.4 percent, or more than
one out of every four nonmetro Hispanics living in poverty in 2003. Both
of these rates were more than 2 times larger than the rate for non-Hispanic
Whites with a poverty rate of 11.3 percent in nonmetro areas. The high
rate of poverty for Hispanics is noteworthy as their share of the nonmetro
population has been increasing over the last decade. According to the
1990 Census, Hispanics comprised less than 3 percent of the nonmetro population.
This proportion increased to approximately 5.5 percent by 2000, making
them the fastest growing nonmetro minority. Poverty rates by race and
ethnicity also show stark differences between nonmetro and metro areas.
The poverty rate for non-Hispanic Blacks living in nonmetro regions was
more than 7 percentage points higher than for those living in metro regions.
Families and Rural Poverty
Family structure has a significant bearing on poverty. Families headed
by two adults are likely to have more sources of income than single-adult
families with children and are therefore less likely to be poor. The highest
poverty rate by type of family is for female-headed, nonmetro families.
More than one out of every three persons living in nonmetro families that
are headed by a female is poor. More than one out of every six persons
living in nonmetro families that are headed by a single male is poor.
These rates are both much higher than the poverty rates for nonmetro families
headed by a husband and wife, where only one out of every 14 persons is
poor. Those persons living in families with a husband and wife present
have the lowest rates of poverty with 7.1 percent poor in nonmetro areas
and 6 percent poor in metro areas. Poverty rates by family type also reveal
large metro-nonmetro differences in poverty rates. The nonmetro poverty
rate for female-headed families is more than 7 percentage points higher
than this rate for metro families.
Poor Children in Rural Areas
Family structure also affects child poverty rates. Families headed by
one adult are not only more likely to be poor, but also by definition,
contain more children than similar-sized families headed by two adults.
This is one of the reasons why children (0-17 years of age) continue to
have the highest poverty rate by age group. The 2003 child poverty rate
in nonmetro areas was 20.1 percent and 17.1 percent in metro areas. In
contrast, the poverty rate for older persons (65 years of age and older)
was 11 percent in nonmetro and 10 percent in metro regions. Similarly,
adults (18-64 years of age) had much lower poverty rates than children,
with 10.8 percent of all adults in poverty. The high rates of child poverty
in both metro and nonmetro areas have persisted for more than a decade
despite significant declines in the rates over time. Between 1993 and
2003, the nonmetro child poverty rate has been at least 7 percentage points
higher than the nonmetro poverty rate for nonelderly adults. Over this
same time period, nonmetro child poverty was at its highest in 1993, when
almost one child out of every four nonmetro children was poor. Over the
last 11 years, this rate has dropped, but still more than one out
of every five children living in nonmetro areas is poor.
Persistence of Poverty
An important dimension of poverty is time. An area that has a high level
of poverty this year, but not next year, is likely better off than an
area that has a high level of poverty in both years. In order to shed
light on this aspect of poverty, ERS has defined counties as being persistently
poor if 20 percent or more of their populations were living in poverty
over the last 30 years (measured by the 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000
decennial censuses). To obtain the persistent poverty code and other county codes,
see 2004 County Typology Codes. Using this definition, there are 386 persistently
poor counties in the United States (comprising 12 percent of all U.S. counties
and 4 percent of the U.S. population). The large majority (340 of 386)
of the persistent poverty counties are nonmetro counties. An indication
that persistent poverty is more pervasive in more rural areas can be seen
by noting that 4 percent of the metro counties, 13 percent of the micropolitan
counties (the more urbanized nonmetro counties), and 18 percent of the
noncore, nonmetro counties (the most rural of nonmetro counties) were
persistent poverty counties. See New Definitions in 2003 for definitions of metro, micro, and noncore.
Persistent poverty also demonstrates a strong regional pattern. There
are no persistent poverty counties in the Northeast and only 60 of the
nonmetro persistent poverty counties are in the Midwest and West. The
remaining 280 nonmetro persistent poverty counties are in the South, comprising
just over 25 percent of the total Southern nonmetro population.
Rural Poverty and County Types
Poverty also varies by county type, with the most urbanized counties having
the lowest rates. Metro counties are commonly characterized as densely
populated central cities and suburbs, and nonmetro counties as sparsely
populated small towns and open countryside. This distinction oversimplifies
the many differences across metro and nonmetro areas. Some metro counties
have relatively small populations and are adjacent to rural areas, and
some nonmetro counties contain urban areas but still qualify as nonmetro.
A more comprehensive classification—separating metro areas into
highly and less-urbanized counties (using metro area population as cutoffs)
and categorizing nonmetro areas by degree of urbanization and adjacency
to metro areas—reveals important differences in poverty. For more
details on the county classification, see 2003 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes.
The poverty rate is the highest in the completely rural counties (not
adjacent to metro counties), with 16.8 percent of the population poor,
and it is the lowest in the largest metro areas, with 11.5
percent of the population poor. Persistent poverty and degree of rurality
are also linked. Nearly 28 percent of the people living in completely
rural counties live in persistent poverty counties. In contrast, 7.5
percent of the people living in the most urban nonmetro areas live in
persistent poverty counties.
