Do poor neighborhoods get worse before they get better? After looking at the data, we sure hope so. By Lane Anderson, July 9, 2014, Deseret News: “The recession hasn’t hit everywhere equally. Poor neighborhoods have gotten poorer in taking the brunt of the downfall, according to a Census Bureau report released Monday. In the last 14 years, more people have moved into low-income neighborhoods, or what the study calls “poverty areas.” These areas are defined as a census tract with a rate of 20 percent poverty or higher, and the number of people living in these places has gone up from 49.5 million in 2000 to 77.4 million in 2008-2012. Now 1 in 4 Americans live in ‘poverty areas.’ The reasons why have to do with cost-of-living and lack of jobs. . .”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty