Reply #29: I am speaking of the rural areas I know

[Coyote_Bandit]

in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma primarily. Although the same could certainly be said for rural areas I am familiar with in Louisiana (even before Katrina) and Tennessee. I've known a lot of people who lived in these areas during my lifetime. Most all of them left in order to be able to earn a livelihood.

In an earlier post I linked to the demographics on Izard county Arkansas. 13,249 people. 3,769 families. Household median income of $25,670. Per capita income of $14,397. 17.20% of the population is below the poverty line. HHS Poverty Guidelines for the year 2000 (http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/00poverty.htm) show that a single individual was living in poverty if they had income of less than $8,350. 17.2% of the population or 2,279 people out of the total population of 13,249 were poor. When you account for that the median per capita income of the remaining population of 10,970 people becomes $15,653. The national poverty rate in 2000 was 11.3% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States) while in Izard county it was 17.2% - some 52% higher than the national rate. Now consider that the average poverty rate in Appalachia in 2000 was 13.6% (http://www.arc.gov/index.do?nodeId=2855).


If I look at towns in Izard county I find the following (all data is from Wikipedia):

Calico Rock (anyone familiar with the writings of John Grisham should recognize this town)
991 people, 428 households, and 264 families
median income for a household was $23,200
per capita income of $14,305.
26.2% of the population were below the poverty line

Franklin
184 people, 80 households, and 52 families
median income for a household was $19,750
per capita income was $13,434
19.6% of the population were below the poverty line

Guion
90 people, 37 households, and 26 families
median income for a household was $16,875
per capita income was $11,264
14.6% of the population living below the poverty line

Melbourne
1,673 people, 736 households, and 448 families
median income for a household was $22,757
per capita income was $13,110
18.4% of the population were below the poverty line

Oxford
642 people, 263 households, and 184 families
median income for a household was $22,313
per capita income was $10,778
22.9% of the population were below the poverty line

Pineville
246 people, 100 households, and 72 families
median income for a household was $25,000
per capita income was $10,339
22.7% of the population were below the poverty line

Mount Pleasant
401 people, 166 households, and 113 families
median income for a household was $21,875
per capita income was $11,014
21.5% of the population were below the poverty line

Horseshoe Bend (this is a retirement area)
2,278 people, 1,142 households, and 725 families
24.3% of the households had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older
median age was 63 years (compared to 43 for the county as a whole)
median income for a household was $26,714
per capita income was $18,987
10.8% of the population were below the poverty line
total monthly government expenditures including salaries for 20 full time employees is $32,951 which includes ***NO*** regular judicial or legal expenditures (http://www.city-data.com/city/Horseshoe-Bend-Arkansas.html)
The nearest city with a population of 50,000 or more is 77 miles away something which suggests these characteristics are not unique to this small county
The nearest city with a population of 200,000 or more is about 150 miles away
Little Rock is about 100 miles away - the Little Rock metropolitan area consists of 4 counties and has a population of about 600,000
This graph shows the distribution of household income in Horseshoe Bend



Sorry, but the area I am describing is a whole lot more like the poverty stricken area of Appalachia than the rural areas you describe in Ohio and Wisconsin. It is not unique. This is what you find more often than not when you leave the metropolitan areas in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma.