Urban Change and Poverty (1988) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Well-Being and Poverty
Well-Being and Poverty
Pages 12-23
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From page 12... ...
Well-Being and Poverty The economic well-being of an area's residents is usually measured by average family and individual incomes, employment and unemployment rates, and the poverty rate. The poverty rate refers to the percentage of people whose income does not provide an adequate standard of living, as defined by the Office of Management and Budget.
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From page 13... ...
There is evidence that the new employment structure of the postindustrial city, in which manufacturing and other entry-level and low-skill jobs are disappearing while whitecoliar service jobs are taking their place as the basis for economic growth, can no longer employ migrants with low education levels, few skills, and little experience (Kasarda, in this volume)
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From page 14... ...
analyze 1980 census data on the economic status of residents of large central cities compared with residents of suburbs, small metropolitan areas, and rural areas. They first review traditional measures of economic well-being (e.g., household income, poverty rate, and unemployment and employment rates)
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From page 15... ...
Employment rates were negatively associated with poverty and unemployment rates and positively associated with household income. These associations suggest that because unemployment rates do not count people who have stopped looking for work, they do not adequately measure the relationship between poverty and work (Berger and Blomquist, in this volume:Table 1, part B)
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From page 16... ...
The poverty rate among white femaTe-headed families was highest in central cities; among similar black and Hispanic households, it was highest in nonmetropolitan areas (Berger and Blomquist, in this volume:Table 3~. CENTRAL-CITY POVERTY Central-city residents have developed the highest poverty rate in the country (Wilson and Aponte, 1985:238~.
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From page 17... ...
Feminization of Poverty The growth of female-headed households, especially among black families, has major implications for urban policy design because children in such families are more likely than those from two-parent families to drop out of school, work in low-status jobs, marry as teenagers, have children as teenagers, have a premarital birth, and divorce. According to an analysis of data from the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics tPSID)
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From page 18... ...
There are at least three reasons for the higher poverty rates among these households. First, single mothers work less and earn less.
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From page 19... ...
; the number of female-headed families also grew in the late 1970s when the real growth in welfare benefits was declining. Most of the growth in female-headed families that is related to increases in welfare benefits probably comes from the effect that increased means have on the ability of a young mother and her children to live independently rather than remain in her mother's home.
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From page 20... ...
argues that, as a result, a potential mismatch has developed between the educational qualifications of minority residents In central cities and the educational requirements of a transforming urban economic base. This mismatch might account for the high unemployment rates among central-city blacks, compared with central-city whites, and might help explain why black unemployment rates have not responded to the economic recovery that has occurred in many of these cities.
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From page 21... ...
have reviewed the research literature on the links between female-headed families and undercIass status. Data on the work history of female-headed families are not readily available, but census data show that In 1979, in the 100 largest central cities, 65.1 percent of the poor female-headed families in poverty areas received public assistance income, in comparison with about 26.7 percent of such families nationally.
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From page 22... ...
In central-city poverty areas in 1980, 47 percent of the children were in female-headed families, and 75 percent of those children were poor (Bureau of the Census, 1985b:Table 1~. As noted earlier, the poverty rates in central-city poverty areas
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From page 23... ...
SUMMARY Despite recent urban economic growth and the fiscal health of many cities in the United States, the committee believes urban poverty to be a persistent major national problem because it is concentrated, isolated, and entrenched. Over the past two decades the national poverty rate first declined and then increased, moving from 17.3 percent in 1965 (33.2 million)
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