Child poverty is disproportionately more likely to occur in rural areas of the U.S. according to researchers at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. In their study, researchers found that 81 percent of counties experiencing persistent child poverty are non-metropolitan. The researchers point to high unemployment, low educational attainment, and physical and social isolation as contributing to high rates of rural poverty, and suggest these factors create problems much different than those faced in densely populated urban areas. They also suggest that urban focus of welfare programs shifts policy makers' attention away from needy families in rural areas. Click here to read the brief.
