What’s the matter With Eastern Kentucky? By Annie Lowrey, June 26, 2014, New York Times: “There are many tough places in this country: the ghost cities of Detroit, Camden and Gary, the sunbaked misery of inland California and the isolated reservations where Native American communities were left to struggle. But in its persistent poverty, Eastern Kentucky — land of storybook hills and drawls — just might be the hardest place to live in the United States. Statistically speaking. The team at The Upshot, a Times news and data-analysis venture, compiled six basic metrics to give a picture of the quality and longevity of life in each county of the nation: educational attainment, household income, jobless rate, disability rate, life expectancy and obesity rate. Weighting each equally, six counties in eastern Kentucky’s coal country (Breathitt, Clay, Jackson, Lee, Leslie and Magoffin) rank among the bottom 10. Clay County, in dead last, might as well be in a different country. The median household income there is barely above the poverty line, at $22,296. . .”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty