POVERTY…The Face of Inequality

1. POVERTY…The Face of Inequality Center for Diversity and Inequality Research, ECU Department of Sociology Poverty … The state of being without the usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.1 Persistently Poor Counties, 1970 to 2000 Poverty in North Carolina … North Carolina has the 12th highest poverty rate in the country. Only ten years ago, North Carolina was 26th. Eighteen percent, 1.7 million of state residents in poverty, twenty percent have no health care coverage. Twenty-five percent of the state’s children live in poverty, including forty percent of children of color. Predictors of poverty include family structure and education. Nationally, almost half (47 percent) of children in single parent female-headed families live in poverty. School district tax bases fund education. High-poverty districts have poor-quality schools…perpetuating poverty. These counties are the Northern Tip of a Black Belt of economically-distressed communities extending to Louisiana. The ten distressed counties are marked by declining manufacturing, inability to connect school students to a network of educated adults, substandard housing, and less preventive health care and more expensive treatments.2 Poverty in Eastern North Carolina … Poverty in North Carolina is not distributed equally across counties. Seven of 10 counties with persistent poverty (20 percent or more of residents lived in poverty every day for the last 20 years) are in northeastern North Carolina. They include our neighbors, Bertie, Halifax, Martin, Northampton, Pitt, Tyrrell, and Washington. 1Zweig, Michael (2004). What's Class Got to do With It, American Society in the Twenty-first Century. ILR Press. 2Sirota, A.F. (2012). The legacy of hardship: Persistent poverty in North Carolina. NC Justice Center. http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/BTC-Brief-Persistent-Poverty.pdf. Accessed February 18, 2013.