Rural Counts: 6.1 Million Kids in Poverty

“How are we doing?” In rural America, this simple phrase is often a greeting wrapped up in a question. Achieving widespread family economic success requires that we regularly ask that same question to measure how far we’ve come and guide where we’re going. In this same spirit, the Annie E. Casey Foundation recently released the 2014 Kids Count Data Book – an annual snapshot of critical benchmarks that show how we’re doing in terms of economic well-being, education, health, and family and community. It has good information for practitioners and is a great starting point for measuring outcomes.

While the Data Book includes important state-level data on child well-being, we here at RuFES are curious as to how children in rural regions are faring. In this RuFES Action Alert, and in others to follow, we will go deeper into the data to see how rural families are doing, and how that data can inform efforts to help rural families Earn It, Keep It and Grow It.

Rural Child Poverty Snapshot

So, how are we doing on child poverty? The news is not good. The Kids Count report indicates that over 16 million American children were living in poverty in 2012. Using county-level data**, our RuFES analysis indicates that 6.1 million of those children living in poverty resided in rural areas. That’s 1.3 million new rural children living in poverty since 2000.

Child poverty is on the rise in both urban and rural counties. According to the last count, child poverty in rural counties with the lowest population density increased 5 percentage points to 24%, and in the most densely populated urban counties it increased 4 percentage points to 20%. Poverty also increased in the lower density urban counties and the higher density rural counties by 5%.

Concentrated Child Poverty: Geography Matters

If there is one kid in poverty in a community – regardless of geography – it is one child too many. But the reality is that child poverty is concentrated both in counties and in regions that are more remote and have fewer social, civic, and economic resources. Concentrated poverty in all its forms places exceptional stress on communities to respond.

Nationally, 643 counties are experiencing high child poverty (a child poverty rate in excess of 30 percent). 95 percent of those high-child-poverty counties are rural. Of the 2.9 million children living in high-child-poverty counties, 1.7 million (57%) resided in rural counties.

The majority of high-child-poverty counties are concentrated in the Southeastern United States, the lower Mississippi Delta, Texas, and Central Appalachia. Rural Tribal lands of the Southwest and northern Great Plains also fall into this category. And, regardless of region, rural areas with significant Hispanic or Latino populations have experienced high child poverty.

Steps to Reduce Rural Child Poverty

The numbers don’t look so good, but we can make a difference on rural child poverty. Child poverty is on the rise because low-wealth families, especially single parent families, were hit hard by the recession and a lack of quality jobs. For too many rural areas, the economy remains fragile and the recovery slow. Regions with concentrated child poverty typically lack a strong economic engine that can help families get ahead.

A reduction in rural child poverty calls for a mix of Earn It strategies (i.e., skills, training and job pipelines), Keep It strategies (quality loans, reduced debt burdens, access to affordable goods) and Grow It strategies (i.e., retirement funds, high quality pre-K-to-12). Fortunately, a number of resources and success stories exist to help you reduce rural child poverty and help hardworking families get ahead:

1. Use the Kids Count Data Center to connect you to your Kids Count State Organization. They can be a critical source of information and direction for engaging on rural child well-being issues.
2. Explore our website to find rural-minded action strategies for helping families get ahead. Here are just two that might interest you:
   • Employer-Sponsored Child Care –Encourage businesses to offer employer-sponsored childcare to promote job retention and reduce working families’ expenses. Families save on childcare while earning a living.
   • Payroll Savings Plans – Encourage families to grow what they keep by helping them set up hassle-free Payroll Savings Plans.
3. Look for more inspiration from other rural communities. Here are some creative rural strategies that might motivate your community:
   • Financial education for low-wealth families in Arkansas: http://www.fndmidsouth.org/financial-education-arkansas-teachers-and-students
   • Kentucky efforts that highlight the need for living wage job creation: http://kypolicy.org/dash/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/State-of-Working-KY-2014-final.pdf

Footnotes:

* The majority of counties in the United States cannot be called exclusively rural or urban. To accommodate a spectrum of urban development, we’ve included mixed rural and mixed urban classifications in our analysis. This technique was developed by A. Isserman and is described and can be accessed here: http://csfowler.com/drupal/Isserman-Urban-Rural-Density.

*  Our numbers will vary somewhat from The Kids Count report, as Kids Count uses statewide one-year estimates from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey for much of their data, while RuFES uses the five-year estimates (2008-2012) that are necessary to include all rural counties.