Tag: poverty

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Green field, near Roper, N.C.

Green field, near Roper, N.C.
Green field, near Roper, N.C.

In late December, we met Travis Starkey, a Greenville, N.C., resident who is trying to focus attention on strategies to deal with endemic poverty of his part of eastern North Carolina — which fits right in with what the Center for a Better South seeks to do.

As the first post of the new year, we offer his 2013 photo of a green field near Roper, N.C., to highlight Starkey’s online effort, dubbed “Greenfield Southeast.” (Roper is a small town in rural Washington County, N.C.  About 27 percent of Roper’s residents live at or below the federal poverty level; some 22 percent of Washington County’s residents are at or below poverty.

Here’s how he explained his blog in 2013, which has evolved over the last year and a half:

“Over the past year, I have spent hundreds of hours attempting to understand the depth of what the South is currently enduring educationally and economically, especially the rural South. Heartened by the increased attention being paid to education outcomes in cities like Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans while also wary of the long-term viability of proposed improvements, I’ve moved forward – researching (and researching) and talking with anyone I can. I’ve also been inspired by technological innovations that could deepen learning and increase economic engagement in rural communities. Over time, though, my understanding of what would be truly helpful and should therefore be immediately acted-upon within either the education or economic space has grown increasingly unclear.

“Given all of this and the fact that I am now firmly planted in eastern North Carolina, I have decided to externalize this inner conversation in the hopes that doing so will bring clarity of purpose and action to me and others. With this blog, my hope is to bring attention to and instigate focused conversation around the unique educational and economic challenges facing citizens in the South, especially the rural South. There are numerous ways to frame the conversation; but I hope to frame it loosely around people, places, and ideas that are currently playing a role or could play a role in the continued progress of this region. And I aspire to write and engage not as an authority, but as a learner alongside many others whose thoughts and deeds will surely push the conversation forward.”

Photo is courtesy Travis Starkey and is copyrighted 2013.  All rights reserved.

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Run-down motel, Allendale, S.C.

Run-down motel, Allendale, S.C. Photo by Michael Kaynard.
Run-down motel, Allendale, S.C. Photo by Michael Kaynard.

Perhaps this image is the perfect characterization of poverty throughout the Southern Crescent.  Not only is the word “crescent” misspelled in the sign outside this seemingly-abandoned motel in Allendale, S.C.  But upon close scrutiny, it’s clear people are actually living in the rooms of this dilapidated place.

NOTE: This photo originally ran in September 2013, but we’re republishing today to remind people about the depth of poverty throughout the Southern Crescent.

Rural Allendale County in South Carolina’s southwest corner as one of the Crescent’s highest poverty rates — more than 40 percent of people live below the federal poverty level. The median household income is about $23,000 a year — half of South Carolina’s average and well below the nation’s $50,000 average.

Photo by Michael Kaynard, Sept. 22, 2013.  All rights reserved.

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Crescent prominent in new map of poverty areas

Poverty is creeping closer to people living in the American South, according to a new report from the U.S. Census.

This map from a new U.S. Census report clearly shows high poverty areas that stretch along the Southern Crescent from Virgina through Georgia to the Delta area along the Mississippi River.

Just under one in three people across the South — 30.8 percent — live in a neighborhood or community in which at least 20 percent of people live in poverty.  Just 10 years ago across the region, one in five people — 21.8 percent of Southerners — lived in these “poverty areas.” Continue reading “Crescent prominent in new map of poverty areas”

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Closed Saturday, Yemassee, S.C.

Closed Saturday, Yemassee, S.C.
Closed Saturday, Yemassee, S.C.

This battered business is what train passengers wee when looking east while at the station in Yemassee, S.C., crossroads of four counties. Next door to this business is a white store with “Praise the Lord” and “Jesus is Lord” painted on large windows.  The sign on top of the building says “Church of the Lord Jesus Christ Deliverance.”  Down the street is a similar store converted into “The Holy Temple Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, Inc. of the Apostolic Faith.”

While Yemassee touches on Beaufort, Colleton and Jasper counties, the station and buildings in the photo appear to be in Hampton County, home to 21,090 people in 2010, about 4,000 fewer than a century earlier.  More. Some 22.6 percent of Hampton County residents live below the poverty line.  Hampton’s annual Watermelon Festival is the state’s longest, continually-running festival.

Photo by Andy Brack, Sept. 22,  2013.  All rights reserved.

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Crescent profiled in Charleston newspaper

Excerpted from an Oct. 13, 2013, story in The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier by Robert Behre:

Charleston-based center tries to tackle problems of the Southern Crescent

It could be the legacy of slavery or the more recent struggles facing family farms or rural areas’ loss of political clout.

In all likelihood, it’s some combination of all three — and possibly other factors as well.

Andy Brack, a self-employed journalist and head of the nonprofit Center for a Better South, is trying to call attention to the unique challenges facing this area, which he refers to as the “Southern Crescent.”

Brack said he never thought much about what lies beyond South Carolina’s so-called “Corridor of Shame.” The corridor — a wide swath around Interstate 95 — took its name from a 2006 documentary about the state’s most impoverished and struggling public schools.

As he studied maps, however, Brack realized the Palmetto State is not unique and that the corridor extends hundreds of miles beyond its state lines.

And he began an effort to raise awareness about its existence, awareness that he hopes will lead to solutions.

“We have a moral imperative to do something to reduce high rates of poverty, unemployment, disease and other conditions in the crescent,” he said. “If we deal with these, that will bolster the South’s reputation, lead to more business and improve our entire region.”

Sagging Southern Numbers
The South has:

  • Roughly 25 percent of the U.S. population.
  • Eight of the nation’s 10 poorest states (Miss., La., Ky., Ga., Ala., Ark., S.C. and N.C.)
  • Seven of the nation’s 10 states with lowest graduation rates from public high school (Miss., S.C., La., Ga., Fla., Ala. and Ark. )
  • Seven of the nation’s 10 states with lowest median household income (Miss., Ark., Ala., Ky., Tenn., La. and S.C.)
  • Four of the nation’s 10 states with the highest crime rates (Tenn., S.C., La., and Fla.)
  • Four of the nation’s 10 states with the highest unemployment in August 2013 (Ga., N.C., Miss. and Tenn.)
  • Two of the nation’s 10 states with lowest 2012 voter participation (Ark. and Tenn.)
  • Between five and eight of the nation’s 10 states with the highest rates of diabetes (8), high blood pressure (7), obesity (6) and infant mortality (5).

Source: 2013 Briefing Book on the South, October 2013. (which defines the South as these 11 states: Ala., Ark., Fla., Ga. Ky., La., Miss., N.C., S.C., Tenn. and Va.)

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Southern Crescent profiled by Charleston newspaper

Run-down motel, Allendale, S.C. Photo by Michael Kaynard.
Run-down motel, Allendale, S.C. Photo by Michael Kaynard.

Excerpted from an Oct. 13, 2013, story in The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier by Robert Behre:

Charleston-based center tries to tackle problems of the Southern Crescent

It could be the legacy of slavery or the more recent struggles facing family farms or rural areas’ loss of political clout.

In all likelihood, it’s some combination of all three — and possibly other factors as well.

Andy Brack, a self-employed journalist and head of the nonprofit Center for a Better South, is trying to call attention to the unique challenges facing this area, which he refers to as the “Southern Crescent.”

Brack said he never thought much about what lies beyond South Carolina’s so-called “Corridor of Shame.” The corridor — a wide swath around Interstate 95 — took its name from a 2006 documentary about the state’s most impoverished and struggling public schools.

As he studied maps, however, Brack realized the Palmetto State is not unique and that the corridor extends hundreds of miles beyond its state lines.

And he began an effort to raise awareness about its existence, awareness that he hopes will lead to solutions.

“We have a moral imperative to do something to reduce high rates of poverty, unemployment, disease and other conditions in the crescent,” he said. “If we deal with these, that will bolster the South’s reputation, lead to more business and improve our entire region.”

Sagging Southern Numbers
The South has:

  • Roughly 25 percent of the U.S. population.
  • Eight of the nation’s 10 poorest states (Miss., La., Ky., Ga., Ala., Ark., S.C. and N.C.)
  • Seven of the nation’s 10 states with lowest graduation rates from public high school (Miss., S.C., La., Ga., Fla., Ala. and Ark. )
  • Seven of the nation’s 10 states with lowest median household income (Miss., Ark., Ala., Ky., Tenn., La. and S.C.)
  • Four of the nation’s 10 states with the highest crime rates (Tenn., S.C., La., and Fla.)
  • Four of the nation’s 10 states with the highest unemployment in August 2013 (Ga., N.C., Miss. and Tenn.)
  • Two of the nation’s 10 states with lowest 2012 voter participation (Ark. and Tenn.)
  • Between five and eight of the nation’s 10 states with the highest rates of diabetes (8), high blood pressure (7), obesity (6) and infant mortality (5).

Source: 2013 Briefing Book on the South, October 2013. (which defines the South as these 11 states: Ala., Ark., Fla., Ga. Ky., La., Miss., N.C., S.C., Tenn. and Va.)

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Video: Promoting opportunity (2013)

You can click the image below to see a four-minute video from 2013 that the Southern Crescent, an impoverished area that stretches from Virginia through South Carolina and then swings over to the Mississippi Delta.

It highlights a dozen maps of the area — maps that tell quite a story.

SOURCES

Here are the sources for the maps that appear in the October 2013 video for the Southern Crescent project:

 

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House with a view, near Gasburg, Va.

Old farm house with commanding presence, near Gasburg, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.
Old farm house with commanding presence, near Gasburg, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.

This imposing, empty old farm house dominates a hilly cow pasture outside Gasburg, Va., near the intersection of Spraggins and Oak Grove roads.

Several people who viewed the photo said it reminded them of Andrew Wyeth’s famous 1948 painting “Christina’s World” — just without Christina.

A post office deliveryman said he recently saw a black bear chasing cows on the property where last week butterflies swarmed around blooming milkweed and Queen Anne’s lace.

Gasburg is in rural Brunswick County, a farming area on the North Carolina border with more than 17,000 residents.  Like most Southern Crescent counties, poverty exceeds 20 percent.

Copyrighted photo taken July 24, 2013, by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South.  All rights reserved.

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New poverty study challenges assumptions

Better South President Andy Brack discussed a new Harvard poverty study that shows poor upward mobility in the Southern Crescent region in the recent issue of Statehouse Report.  From the commentary:

For Americans trying to escape poverty, location matters – just like in real estate. And if you live in the Deep South, it’s harder to escape than about anywhere else in the country, just as generations of us have known.

 

Throughout every area of South Carolina, jumping from the bottom quintile of income to the middle class or beyond is tough, according to a new Harvard study making waves in policy circles.

 

In the Columbia area, for example, a child has a 36.6 percent chance of rising out of the bottom quintile of income and a 4.2 percent chance of leaping from the bottom to the top quintile. Those probabilities are among the lowest in the nation and not much different from the number for Greenville, where kids have a 37.7 percent chance to escape poverty and a 4.9 percent chance to be among the nation’s highest earners. Researchers found similar low numbers for Memphis, Charlotte, Atlanta and Raleigh.

 

“Where you grow up matters,” Harvard economist and researcher Nathaniel Hendren told The New York Times. “There is tremendous variation across the U.S. in the extent to which kids can rise out of poverty.”

 

The new study is drawing attention for what it found, but also for what it didn’t find. Researchers crafted the study by analyzing millions of anonymous earnings records to measure intergenerational mobility, or how children move across income levels compared to their parents.

 

The research team was interested in whether tax breaks and credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, were correlated to high mobility, or the ability of kids to move out of poverty. They found some correlation between local tax rates and mobility, but a weaker correlation between state EITC policies and mobility.

 

So they looked for other factors to explain why some areas had high mobility out of poverty and others, like Southern states, had low mobility. They identified four correlations, but emphasized they were not causes:

  • Family structure. “The share of households with kids that are headed by a single mother is a very strong predictor of mobility,” research associate Alex Olssen told Statehouse Report. The study indicated income mobility was higher in areas with more two-parent households.

  • Local middle class. The density that poor families are dispersed among mixed-income neighborhoods appear to be correlated. “Areas in which low income individuals were residentially segregated from middle-income individuals were also particularly likely to have low rates of upward mobility,” according to the study.

  • Better schools. Income mobility is higher when a metro area has better primary and secondary schools. Having an array of colleges and their tuition rates don’t appear to be as significant, according to study’s results.

  • Civic engagement. The more chances for civic engagement, including with religious and community groups, the better the upward mobility.

For the full commentary, click here.