Conventional wisdom has long held that the poor overwhelmingly lived in cities and urban areas.
But a new study by the Brookings Institution shows dramatic growth in poverty beyond city limits - in the suburbs. Although suburban poor in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metro grew from 2000 to 2011 by nearly one third, 31.7 percent, to 63,089, it was one of the lower rates of growth among metros in the study. The national average increase was 63.9 percent, more than twice the growth of urban poor.
The study ranks the growth of suburban poor in the nation's 100 largest metros. In 17 of those, suburban poverty more than doubled in the last decade.
Teri Ooms, executive director of the locally based Institute for Public Policy & Economic Development, is not surprised by the findings. While people may perceive area boroughs as urbanized, by federal definition, they are suburbs.
"Many of our boroughs are treated as suburbs if you look at them, several have high poverty rates because of working poor and elderly poor," she said. "We don't have enough Clarks Summits, Waverlys and Mountaintops to balance them out."
Here's a look at some other local statistics on suburban poverty and how they compare to national figures:
- Housing voucher use. The majority of housing vouchers are used in area suburbs, but that number is falling. In 2000, 85.8 percent of housing vouchers were used in the suburbs, sliding to 81.8 percent in 2008. Nationally, voucher use is about half city, half suburb, but growing in the suburbs as urban housing stock ages and more housing units open in the suburbs.
- Free/Reduced School Lunch. Over the past five years, the number of children qualifying for free and reduced lunch in city schools increased 29.4 percent, nearly the same rate as suburban schools, 30 percent.
- The percentage of city dwellers in poverty remained higher, 22.3 percent, compared to 13.4 percent of suburbanites in 2011.
The boom in suburban poor was fueled by the expansion of low-wage service jobs in hospitality or retail that drew the working poor. More recently the recession and the mortgage crisis hurt longtime suburbanites. Nationally, the decade saw the suburban poor outnumber the city poor for the first time. Brookings noted that while "there is no good place to be poor," being poor in the suburbs offers unique challenges. Typically they are remote from work and services and not as well served by the public transportation.
The U.S. government spent $82 billion annually in place-based poverty programs. Brookings faults the government for focusing those roughly 80 programs in urban areas, which researchers called "an outdated understanding of where poverty is and whom it affects."
Contact the writer: dfalchek@timesshamrock.com