Poverty in the Suburbs

“For the first time ever, more poor Americans live in the suburbs than in all our cities combined.”  So writes Eyal Press in “The New Suburban Poverty” published in The Nation magazine’s April 23, 2007 edition.

He was commenting on a December 2006 report from The Brookings Institution, which studied the results of inner city gentrification forcing working class residents out into the suburbs and the pool of low wage jobs, such as cleaning homes, mowing lawns, and staffing restaurants, strip malls, and office plazas.

Surprisingly, the inner ring of first tier suburbs with its older housing stock does not bear the brunt of this increasing suburban poverty, as the study found Consider Nassau County on Long Island, New York, where the median family income is $87,558 but which also saw a 40% increase in food stamps since 2003.

And the beat goes on.