Poverty, the U.S. South, and the SRSA

Abstract

This paper is a broad expansion of an SRSA Research Fellows Address presented in Roslyn, Virginia on April 16th, 2019. In it, I extol the virtues of poverty research, particularly that focused on the U.S. where households living on less than $4/day/person compose the largest shares of county populations. I note that two factors that are the hallmark of such extreme poverty - lack of a vehicle and lack of internet service - are forcing poor household to perceive themselves as ever more isolated, for greater accessibility for the rest of the U.S. population amplifies the gap created by their deficiency. This is because others expect everyone has such access. Southern areas with persistent poverty - the Black Belt, the Mississippi Delta, and Appalachia - have concentrations of such extreme poor and also have deficient access to the rest of the world. I suggest that Americans should find away to ameliorate this condition. I conclude by encouraging my SRSA colleagues to do what they do best, but with a poverty tilt, as a means of petitioning policy makers and the public.