by Julie N. Zimmerman

Last issue I presented the following five myths about rural poverty: the majority of the poor live in inner-city neighborhoods; poverty in rural areas looks much like that found in urban areas; the poor live off government welfare; homelessness is an urban problem; and poor families are trapped in a cycle of poverty that few escape. Here are six more we need to consider.

As debates on welfare reform have made clear, new approaches to low income households have become an integral part of public discourse. With the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act (HR 3734), poverty programs are moved from a federal safety net to state-directed efforts focused on actively moving individuals "from welfare to work."

However, implementing these programs holds particular implications for rural areas where poverty rates are higher, those living below the poverty line are more likely to be already employed, and local governments possess fewer resources.

In his piece from the Population Reference Bureau (http://www.prb.org), William P. O’Hare discusses several myths about poverty which tend to be part of public debates around poverty and reforming poverty programs (1996). These myths are not facts for the nation as a whole. Given the distinctiveness of poverty in rural areas, they are even farther removed from reality in rural areas.

Myth: 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, their 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 nonrelatives (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: 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.

However, while the highest number of people living in poverty in rural areas are white, poverty rates for minorities are higher in both rural and urban areas. In 1994 nearly one-third of all African Americans and Hispanics were living below the poverty line. In rural areas in the North Central region, the poverty rate in 1990 for African Americans was 35.5 percent and for Hispanics it was 25.3 percent. For Native Americans, not included in O’Hare’s work, the poverty rate for those living in rural areas in our region was 43.8 percent.

Myth: 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: 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: 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: 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.

Conclusion

As O’Hare puts it "The recent public debate over welfare reform was often influenced by myths, anecdotes, and misunderstandings rather than by the facts about U.S. poverty" (1996). The same holds true for poverty in rural areas. And, while poverty in urban and rural areas does not look the same, neither does poverty in the North Central region necessarily call forth the same issues as that in other areas.

As we work to make sense of and implement the recently signed Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act (HR 3734), we cannot forget that poverty has many faces and that people living in poverty face a wide range of barriers. Under this new legislation, while there are more opportunities for states to experiment and potentially build locally-relevant programs, there are also more opportunities for missteps.

Given the strength of myths surrounding the reality of poverty, for those living in poverty in rural areas, the recent welfare reform could potentially leave them further behind. But if the myths are replaced by facts, then skilled, motivated workers can be developed and linked with appropriate jobs and other income opportunities.

NOTE: Myths indicated with an asterisk are from O'Hare (1996). Thank you to Mark Nord of the USDA's Economic Research Service for providing the data for the North Central region. For more information contact Julie N. Zimmerman at the NCRCRD, (515) 294-2979. _

References

ERS/USDA. 1995. Understanding Rural America. Agricultural Information Bulletin No. 710. Washington, D.C.: Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Flora, Cornelia Butler. 1992. "The New Poor in Midwestern Farming Communities." In Rural Poverty in America, edited by Cynthia M. Duncan, 201-211. Westport, CT: Auburn House.

O'Hare, William P. 1996. A New Look at Poverty in America. Population Bulletin Vol 51, No. 2.

Rural Sociological Society Task Force on Persistent Rural Poverty. 1993. Persistent Poverty in Rural America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.