Poverty definitions depend on federal poverty level income
thresholds, but numbers alone do not describe what life is like
in poverty. To think about life in poverty is to think about
differences in class, culture, politics and opportunities for a
better life.
While the organization of rural life has been fundamentally
transformed by institutional and social changes that have
occurred since the mid-twentieth century, rural people and
communities have proved resilient in the face of these
transformations.
This 2014 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture examines
how much year-to-year changes in the prevalence of household food
insecurity is related to changes in unemployment, inflation and
the price of food relative to other goods and services.
This report by the U.S. Census Bureau describes individuals and
families living near poverty–those individuals whose family
incomes are close, but not below, official poverty thresholds.
This includes demographic characteristics such as age, sex, race,
family type, religion, educational attainment, employment and
health insurance coverage.
In Davis L. Brown and Kai A. Schafft’s essay, “Rural People and
Communities in the 21st Century,” the authors illustrate that
North Americans and Europeans broadly possess anti-urban and
pro-rural sentiments. Intuitively, upon reading this, I felt that
it must be incorrect, or at least the statement, “North Americans
and Europeans hold favorable opinions about rural areas,”
incompletely describes general sentiments concerning rural areas.
In this podcast, visiting scholar Ezra Rosser and UC Davis Law
professor and Center faculty affiliate Lisa Pruitt discuss a
range of issues related to Native American Poverty, from its lack
of visibility and interest for legal scholars to its causes and
possible solutions.
In this October 2013 seminar, Center Faculty Affiliate Sasha
Abramsky discussed his work researching and writing about today’s
poor for his new book The American Way of Poverty: How the
Other Half Still Lives.
