Poverty Among Southern Workers: Metro and Nonmetro Differentials

quired to sustain a minimally adequate standard of living. It is still pervasive in our society and affects more than 13% of the population (over 32 million people). The American public customarily perceives poverty as a metro2 problem. However, the poverty rate has been higher in nonmetro than in metro areas since 1959, the first year for which poverty data are available using the official government definition (USDA). Further, according to the 1992 U.S. Bureau of the Census, poverty rates continued to be more severe in nonmetro areas than in metro areas. The 1992 nonmetro poverty rate was 16.8%; 2.9 percentage points higher than the metro rate of 13.9% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Geographically, the South3 continues to have the highest poverty rate, 16.9% in 1992. Moreover, the South continues to have the highest nonmetro black poverty rate, around 40%, and over 90% of poor nonmetro blacks reside in the South. The census data also indicate that each population group (female head of household, married couples, related children, whites, blacks, Hispanic, and elderly/aged) had a higher poverty ate in nonmetro areas in 1992 than in metro areas; the increases in poverty rates since 1973 have been unevenly distributed across all groups. For instance, since 1987, the poverty rate for nonmetro female heads of households