Poverty in the Suburbs

Poverty moves into the suburbs, By Ann Belser, November 7, 2010, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Life in America’s suburbs, isn’t all commuting and scout meetings anymore, if it ever was. Among its many side effects, the Great Recession brought into stark relief the fact that poverty has taken root in the nation’s suburban areas. Once seen as a problem only in urban and rural areas, the strains caused by lost jobs or low income employment are now shared by neighborhoods that were often created as havens from a city’s ills. ‘It’s a longer historical trend where you’re seeing cities and suburbs moving closer together, not just in unemployment but also in poverty and food stamps,’ said Emily Garr, a research assistant at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. On Friday, the government announced the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 9.6 percent and, if this month’s data pans out the same as others have since the recession’s start, the growth of suburban unemployment will continue to outpace that of urban unemployment. The change is not readily apparent in a year-over-year comparison, but it stands out when looking at data over the last two decades…”