Trump may see high gas prices as 'peanuts,' but they are squeezing lower-income Americans the most

Photo by Yassine Khalfalli, Unsplash

In a frustrated remark, President Donald Trump referred to surging gas prices across the U.S. as "peanuts" compared to the threat of Iran producing a nuclear warhead.

And while many Americans might agree that wallet-draining gas prices are preferable to horrific global outcomes, the war is costing poorer Americans a higher percentage of their income than it is wealthier Americans.

"For households in the bottom quarter of the income distribution — those earning roughly $40,000 a year or less — commuting fuel costs now consume an average of about 4% of their income," report Julie Z. Weil and Federica Cocco of The Washington Post. "For households in the top quarter, earning $100,000 or more, the same costs amount to less than 1%."

Lower-income workers get squeezed from all sides when gas prices increase. "They tend to live farther from their jobs, in areas with little or no public transit, and are more likely to drive older, less fuel-efficient vehicles," the Post reports. For most, working from home is not an option, leaving them unable to escape the need to buy gas — no matter the price. The only other option is to skip work, doctor's appointments or social outings that require a car fueled by gas.

The more than 40% increase in gas prices from May 2025 to the present has left some lower-income Americans facing tough choices. Debbie Zambrana, who lives on a fixed disability income, used to help her son out by driving his children to school events. Weil and Cocco write, "For the first time, she recently told him that she could only drive them if he covered the fuel."

With gas prices recently reaching $4.50 a gallon, there is little low-income workers can do to help themselves — even when they budget carefully. "Personal finance experts commonly advise that people shouldn’t spend more than 10% of their after-tax income on commuting expenses," Weil and Cocco add. "Spending 4% of income on gas alone can quickly throw everything out of whack."

Very rural New Mexico reaps millions in oil revenue

In the U.S., only Texas produces more oil than New Mexico.
(Photo by Laura Mann, Unsplash)

New Mexico's state treasury began reaping millions in oil revenue after global crude supplies were strangled in the Strait of Hormuz. 

Despite the predominantly rural state's dependence on fossil-fuel-generated revenue, the windfall has sparked mixed feelings for "Democrats who oppose the war and would rather reduce their reliance on fossil fuels," reports Morgan Lee of The Associated Press.

The Democratic-led "Land of Enchantment" is second only to Texas for oil production, and the "state’s revenue from taxes, royalties and lease sales helps cover the cost of college tuition, all school meals, health insurance and a new initiative for free universal child care," Lee explains.

Even seemingly small increases in crude oil prices can mean big money for the state. Lee reports, "For every $1 fluctuation in the average annual price of oil, New Mexico sees a roughly $59 million swing in state government income."

The state's treasury automatically channels increases in oil revenue "into a series of trust accounts designed to gradually reduce the state’s reliance on fossil fuels," Lee writes. Through investments, those trusts "underwrite Medicaid, early childhood education, infrastructure projects and an expansion of mental healthcare" in a very rural state that is "entrenched [with] swaths of extreme poverty and the nation’s highest enrollment rate in Medicaid."

New Mexico isn't the only rural state to see surges in state income because of the war with Iran. Lee adds, "In Alaska, the state forecast an additional $1.05 billion for the current fiscal year and the one beginning July 1."

Survey: Seniors, rural residents and renters face the 'devasting impact' of inflation

Rising gas and grocery costs hit lower-income Americans 
harder. (Photo by rc.xyz NFT gallery, Unsplash)

Even before the Iran war, seniors and rural families were struggling to afford basics such as groceries, gas and rent. With the Strait of Hormuz closure, more Americans are under financial strain, but the higher costs hit lower-income people and families harder.

Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey shows "certain groups of Americans are falling behind financially, with seniors, renters and people living outside metropolitan areas facing particular hardships," reports Stephanie Liebergen of Scripps News. The survey gathers demographic, social and economic data on Americans over five-year time spans.

Between 2020 and 2024, the "poverty rate for seniors rose in more than 800 counties when compared to the five years before, according to the survey," Liebergen writes. "Inflation wiped out almost all income gains for older Americans during this period."

Rural Americans' finances also lost ground because of lower or stagnant wages. Liebergen explains, "The median household income in large metro areas is 30% higher compared to households in rural communities, according to the new data." Renters, who tend to fall into lower income brackets, also got pinched. 

Eric Pachman, a data expert who analyzed the survey's results, told Scripps, "What the story really is, and what's really hitting me very hard right now, is the devastating impact of inflation on people at lower income brackets."

The survey does not include details on the 2025 tariff wars and the 2026 Iran war. Those two impacts have driven inflation higher, leaving more Americans spending a higher percentage of their incomes on gas and groceries.

Consumer prices across the U.S. rose at the "fastest rate since May 2023 last month, as sharp increases in energy costs caused by the war in the Middle East," reports Lydia DePillis of The Wall Street Journal. "Average gasoline prices are above $4.50 per gallon, while diesel prices have nearly doubled. . . .Grocery costs rose 2.9% since last April."

The 'War on Poverty' failed to help McDowell County, W. Va. They've decided they're on their own.

The once bustling streets of McDowell County today are empty. The county's only Walmart closed down in 2016. (Photo sources James Williams, 2020, Bluefield Daily Telegraph, 2016, and Jamie in Wanderland, 2018 via William Vermillion)

The U.S. War on Poverty was launched more than 60 years ago as a social and humanitarian-driven initiative to address extreme poverty in regions like Appalachia. But for residents in McDowell County, W. Va., where the federal government "poured more than $3.6 billion into trying to ease hardship. … It hasn't worked," reports Dan Frosch of The Wall Street Journal. "Some two-thirds of households with children still get food stamps, among the nation’s highest rates."

McDowell residents have watched their once-vibrant coal town's population shrivel "from just over 51,000 to roughly 17,000," Frosch writes. "With little faith left in government to break the cycle of poverty, those who remain say it’s up to them to forge a brighter economic path."

While the billions in federal dollars couldn't replace the jobs and money the coal companies provided, new resources and a keen eye for a plan B have become part of McDowell's revival. Frosch explains: "A network of nonprofits has sprung up. Many are funded with federal grants and private donations and run by locals. Most have had to figure out how to keep going when government money runs out."

Often considered a food desert, some McDowell residents are learning mountain farming from their neighbors, Jason Tartt and Amelia Bandy, who "began transforming a 350-acre plot into a teaching farm," Frosch reports. "Tartt, Bandy and a shoestring staff have trained some 60 people on farming the mountain valleys."

Location of McDowell County in part of 
Appalachia (Earthstar Geographics, Esri, map)

Mavis Brewster, who heads the McDowell County Public Service District, has "spent the past two decades working to get clean water to as many people as she can with few resources," Frosch adds. "She spends her days jigsawing state and federal funding sources for new water systems."

Stacy Henderson is working for the nonprofit converting the area's old Walmart store into a new factory. She told Frosch, "There’s been this helicopter approach where people come in and tell the community, ‘This is what we’re going to do.' This project is being worked on from within.”

"Their efforts are small in comparison to the government programs that have sought to revive McDowell County," Frosch adds. "But they are spurring hope for renewal in some places, driven by one of the few constants here: resilience."

Opinion: Rural kids need more than trade school training to lift themselves out of hopeless circumstances

Working-class rural kids need more than trade school training to help pull themselves out of unhealthy living situations, including abject poverty, writes Jessica Grose in her opinion for The New York Times.

Grose cites the new book by Beth Macy, Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America, as a source for insight and solutions on how the U.S. education system could help more rural youth recover from trauma and set their lives on a different track.

"Macy, a former newspaper reporter and the author of 'Dopesick,' the 2018 best seller about how the opioid crisis ravaged Appalachia, returned to her hometown, Urbana, Ohio, for the new book," Grose explains. "She is trying to figure out how a working-class girl like her got to college and the middle class from Urbana 40 years ago, while that journey is much more arduous for today’s rural working class."

"How do young people, especially those without supportive parents, make a future for themselves? . . . While learning a trade is excellent advice for many students, it is not the cure-all for inequality that our commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, hopes it might be when he says he wants Harvard to build vocational schools,'" Grose explains.

Grose points out that "learning a trade" isn't easy and that trade work requires "the same kinds of executive functioning, people skills and intelligence that a college education requires, just applied differently."

Giving working-class youth the help they need through rural schools is one of the best solutions, according to Macy. "Rural schools need better access to wraparound services, providing students with necessities like food, but also health care in the form of school nurses and counselors on site," Grose adds.

But providing those types of services in rural areas is a tall order. Grose writes, "Most school systems run on economies of scale and a per-student funding model; it poses a great challenge to provide wraparound services to districts with fewer students who have a lot of needs and who are also spread out."

"My dark prediction is that kids with more stable families and better developed life skills will occupy the trade jobs that used to be a reliable route to the middle class," Grose asserts. "We need to support working-class kids before the 21st century abandons them completely."

Opinion: Bringing grocery stores back to poor and rural areas requires reviving a 1936 law that is now ignored

Adobe Stock photo

A change in federal policy during the 1980's created modern-day "food deserts" in poor and rural communities. While the revision was intended "to reward the biggest retail chains for their efficiency," writes Stacy Mitchell in her opinion for The Atlantic, it put local grocery stores out of business while increasing food costs in areas already hampered by poverty and depopulation. . . . "Food deserts will not go away until that mistake is reversed."

Historically, local grocery stores were shielded by the Robinson-Patman Act. "The law essentially bans price discrimination, making it illegal for suppliers to offer preferential deals and for retailers to demand them. It does, however, allow businesses to pass along legitimate savings," Mitchell explains. For more than four decades, the Robinson-Patman Act successfully maintained the delicate balance of U.S. grocery store competition between big chains and local stores.

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration didn't agree with the "tough antitrust enforcement" that previous administrations had provided through the Robinson-Patman Act, so "the government simply stopped enforcing it," Mitchell writes. "That move tipped the retail market in favor of the largest chains. . . .Walmart was the first to fully grasp the implications of the new legal terrain. It soon became notorious for aggressively strong-arming suppliers, a strategy that fueled its rapid expansion."

Once the Robinson-Patman Act was dismantled, independent grocers and smaller supply businesses couldn't compete on price and were squeezed out of their neighborhood markets. "Price discrimination spread beyond groceries, hobbling bookstores, pharmacies, and many other local businesses," Mitchell reports. "From 1982 to 2017, the market share of independent retailers shrank from 53% to 22%."

Meanwhile, mega-retailers such as Walmart and Safeway continue to dominate sales but still fail to meet needs in rural communities. Why? They don't have to. "Walmart can capture spending across a wide region by locating its supercenters in larger towns."

Stacy Mitchell
(Photo by Brian Fitzgerald via ILSR)

To create an economic atmosphere where smaller local grocers and retailers could succeed, the Robinson-Patman Act will need to be revived and applied. Mitchell adds,"Requiring a level pricing playing field would restore local retailers’ ability to compete. This would provide immediate relief to entrepreneurs who have recently opened grocery stores in food deserts, only to find that their inability to buy on the same terms as Walmart and Dollar General makes survival difficult."

Stacy Mitchell is a co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, where her research focuses on economic concentration and the health of local economies.

Report on rural places with high broadband utilization rates shows dramatic growth for businesses

Many rural places with high broadband utilization
have increased business growth rates.

Reliable and fast broadband service can bring revenue and jobs to rural areas struggling with poverty and shrinking populations due to few work opportunities, reports Kristi Eaton of The Daily Yonder. A new report from the Center on Rural Innovation "found that in areas with high adoption rates of broadband, self-employment increased by 10% or more."

Amanda Weinstein, director of Research at the Center on Rural Innovation, told Eaton, "For those communities with high broadband utilization, they saw a tremendous difference, specifically with entrepreneurship. We saw not just our businesses not closing, but new businesses opening. The difference was so stark that it was a 213% difference in the business growth rate.”

The town of Statesboro in Bulloch County, Georgia, hopes improving its broadband "will help the community break its pattern of persistent poverty," Eaton writes. "Serial entrepreneur Adam Tsang believes reliable, super-fast Internet is paramount for his Statesboro business, Whiskey Grail. He said that in today’s world, slow connections, even when temporary, have an outsized impact on businesses such as his."

Bulloch County has benefited from the dedication of its broadband service provider, which has installed high-speed fiber broadband service to 100% of the region's locations. Weinstein told Eaton, "What you see from Bulloch Solutions – they are a broadband service provider -- is really this commitment that everyone, and they mean everyone across the county, should have access to high-speed internet.”

Rural places that have successfully installed fiber broadband have seen positive financial shifts, which can make a big difference for the community's quality of life. The report states, "Counties that effectively utilize broadband are seeing marked improvements in local economic dynamism, suggesting that broadband can help mitigate the economic disadvantages often faced by rural areas."

When poverty is measured differently, a new and surprisingly poorer American picture emerges

Many Americans may look to the federal poverty rate as a way to measure how many U.S. citizens are living in need. Unfortunately, that snapshot is "just the tip of the iceberg," writes Jeffrey C. Fuhrer of Brookings in his blog. Fuhrer outlines why the the poverty rate, which doesn't vary from place to place, is a "woefully incomplete measure of economic need. A much more relevant benchmark is the cost of a basket of basic necessities. That benchmark, unlike the poverty threshold, varies dramatically by geography, as housing and other costs vary substantially from county to county. The cost of necessities far exceeds the poverty level for every family category in every county in the country."

When the ability of a family's income to meet basic needs is used to calculate how many American budgets fall short, a much different picture emerges. For a "shockingly high proportion of families, total family resources do not cover the expenses for these necessities. And that proportion rises significantly for families of color," Fuhrer adds. "Forty-three percent of all families in the U.S. fall short of meeting basic needs. And the legacy of institutional racism jumps out of these statistics: Across all family structures, 59% and 66% of Black and Hispanic families, respectively, have resources that fall short of basic family budgets, versus 37% of white families."

How do families manage to make do without? "As the interviewees in my recent book, The Myth That Made Us, attest, they use a variety of tactics to cope with life on or near the edge. To be sure, they scrimp on some necessities. Families can avoid spending on preventative health care, home maintenance (for the minority who own homes), auto maintenance and other necessary expenditures that can be deferred. They go into debt," Fuhrer explains. "All of these decisions bear important longer-term consequences. As a leading example, non-payment of rent often leads to eviction and the endless trauma that accompanies it."

By the numbers, the U.S. is the wealthiest country in the world, but many Americans are not sharing in that legacy. Fuhrer writes, "The huge numbers of families with low incomes, measured not relative to the poverty line but to quite conservative budgets, is staggering. . . "

To read Fuhrer's complete blog posting including supporting data and graphs, click here.

Could sleeping in a public park be a crime? A decision about the nation's homelessness crisis goes to the Supreme Court

The Grants Pass decision could change how homelessness
is handled by communities. (Adobe Stock photo)

As the number of homeless people in the U.S. continues to climb, many communities face conflicts over homeless campers and encampments. The rural town of Grants Pass, Oregon, "has become the unlikely face of the nation's homelessness crisis," reports Claire Rush of The Associated Press. The fate of the town's anti-camping laws is in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard the case on April 22. 

Grants Pass, like many communities, has "struggled for years with a burgeoning homeless population. A decade ago, City Council members discussed how to make it 'uncomfortable enough. . . in our city so they will want to move on down the road,'" Rush explains. "From 2013 to 2018, the city issued 500 citations for camping or sleeping in public, including in vehicles, with fines that could reach hundreds of dollars."

The Supreme Court's decision hinges on their review of a 2018 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which blocked anti-camping laws for individuals as violations of the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment." Rush reports, "Officials across the political spectrum — from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, which has nearly 30% of the nation's homeless population, to a group of 22 conservative-led states — have filed briefs in the case, saying lower court rulings have hamstrung their ability to deal with encampments."

Homeless people and advocates insist that more housing is the answer to homelessness, not citations and punitive actions. "Civil rights groups and attorneys for the homeless residents who challenged the restrictions in 2018 insist people shouldn't be punished for lacking housing," Rush explains. "Grants Pass has just one overnight shelter for adults, the Gospel Rescue Mission. It has 138 beds, but rules including attendance at daily Christian services, no alcohol, drugs or smoking and no pets mean many won't stay there."

At the heart of the problem in Grants Pass is the encampments found along the town's scenic public parks that frame the Rogue River. "They host everything from annual boat-racing festivals to Easter egg hunts and summer concerts," Rush reports. "They're also the sites of encampments blighted by illegal drug use and crime, including a shooting at a park last year that left one person dead."

For details on the case's oral arguments, click here and here. The Supreme Court's decision is expected by the end of June.

Some states refuse bipartisan aid for school summer lunches; program gives eligible students $40 per month

Some states won't accept aid for summer lunches.
(Photo by Matthew Moloney, Unsplash)

Some states have refused federal support that would be used to provide summer lunch money to families with children who receive free or reduced lunches during the school year.  

"The new $2.5 billion program, known as Summer EBT, passed Congress with bipartisan support. The program will provide families with about $40 a month for every child who receives free or reduced-price meals at school — $120 for the summer," reports Madeline Cass of The New York Times. "The red-state refusals will keep aid from about 10 million children, about a third of those potentially eligible nationwide."

Why would a state governor turn down federal summer lunch money but accept funding while school is in session? Their reasons varied from summer lunches contributing to childhood obesity to insisting that free summer lunches were only part of pandemic aid. Cass writes, "Poor states are especially resistant, though the federal government bears most of the cost. Of the 10 states with the highest levels of children's food insecurity, five rejected Summer EBT: Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas."

In deep-red Arkansas, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders welcomed the federal provision. "'Making sure no Arkansan goes hungry, especially children, is a top concern for my administration,' she said in a news release," Cass reports. "Arkansas officials estimate the program will cost the state about $3 million and deliver $45 million in benefits."

Early this year, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told The Associated Press: "No child in this country should go hungry. They certainly shouldn't go hungry because they lose access to nutritious school meals during the summer months."

But a look at Summer EBT division doesn't bear that sentiment out. Cass explains, "The outcome illuminates the arbitrary nature of the American safety net, which prioritizes local control. North Dakota and North Carolina are in; South Dakota and South Carolina are out. . . .  In the impoverished Mississippi Delta, eligibility depends on which side of the Mississippi River a child lives."

Rural America shows population growth and a decline in poverty, according to a new report

Rural America added population for the first time
in decades. (USDA photo)

After multiple decades of decline, rural America is growing in population and has fewer counties where residents live in "persistent poverty," reports Jamie Henneman of The Prairie Star, which serves central Montana. The Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service recently released its "Rural America at a Glance" report, which analyzes population, employment, housing and poverty in America's non-urban areas. "Much of the data suggested a positive trend for Americans living outside of cities, according to USDA ERS economist James Davis."

"We saw rural populations grow a quarter of a percent from 2020 to 2022 after a decline or near-zero growth between 2010 and 2020," Davis noted in the report. "That's an eighth of a percent growth per year, or 50,000 people more in rural areas each year. . . . Domestic migration favored rural areas for their recreation and as retirement destinations. Rural areas near metro areas were also popular."

The Census Bureau determines national "poverty" income thresholds. "In 2023, a family of four making under $29,960 was considered to be in poverty," Henneman writes. "And an individual household making under $14,891 was considered to be in poverty."

"We had 244 rural counties considered persistently poor from 2011 to 2021," Davis said in the report. "Since then, 26 more counties entered persistent poverty, but 55 counties left the designation. Overall, we had 9.7 percent fewer counties experiencing persistent poverty compared with a decade earlier."

"Housing was another topic considered in the USDA ERS report," Henneman adds, as well as how rural employment is fairing post-pandemic.

Kids who grew up poor in rural areas fair better later in life than urban kids, a study shows. Researchers look at why.

Two-parent households may give rural kids an
advantage. (Photo by Arseny Togulev, Unsplash)

Researchers looked at income outcomes for children who grew up poor in rural areas compared to their urban counterparts and found a surprising difference: rural children tended to earn more later in life, reports Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder. "Authors of a new study on social mobility found rural children born in poverty gain higher incomes as adults compared to low-income urban children. . . . Factors like community trust, social capital, and the rate of two-parent households help explain more upward social mobility, or positive change in one's economic status, among rural children born into poverty, according to a 2023 study." 

The study's lead researcher, Dylan Connor, an associate professor at Arizona State University, told Melotte, "People have noticed this rural advantage but haven't really been able to explain it. The conventional thing that people have said is that conditions are so bad in these rural places that kids grow up and leave. . . . Rural places actually seem quite favorable compared to urban places." Melotte adds, "In response to this trend, Connor and other researchers think it's important to look at places that are still delivering opportunity and to try to determine what characteristics of those places make them favorable."

A defining advantage that rural children have is more two-parent families. "Connor and his colleagues found that rural children in poverty achieved higher incomes as adults than urban children in poverty did. One explanation is that a greater share of rural children are born into two-parent households," Melotte explains. "The rural advantage doesn't just apply to the people who grew up in a rural community but moved to a city as adults. The study demonstrated that both low-income children who remained in a rural community through adulthood and those who left experienced an income advantage compared to their urban-born peers."

The study also revealed a rural bias that favored male income and opportunities. "On some measures of income attainment, girls born in low-income households don’t benefit from the same rural advantage as boys," Melotte reports. "With personal income – which refers to the incomes of each adult member of the household, not their combined incomes – women earned significantly less than their male peers. . . . Disparities in personal income between men and women are greater in rural areas than they are in urban ones." Connor told Melotte: "Women actually seem to benefit from growing up in a city in terms of pursuing their own careers and so on.”

When it comes to the economy, many rural Americans feel left out of the conversation, study groups suggest

When it comes to the economy, rural Americans tend to
feel unheard. (The Daily Yonder photo)

When news outlets claim the U.S. economy has shown "surprising resilience" or robust job growth, their analysis often neglects rural Americans, leaving people feeling more marginalized and unheard, The Daily Yonder polling found. Daily Yonder Publisher Dee Davis outlines their research efforts and gives voice to some rural experiences and needs. Below is a condensed version of his commentary based on the polling and discussions with rural residents.

"For the last couple of years, we have been working with groups around the country to get a sense of what rural communities were feeling about the economy. Are country people hurting? Are they optimistic? Is it the same old up one day and down the next? As part of our research, we have commissioned polling, conducted eight focus groups in four states, and shared what we have found with policy professionals and political analysts. As the fog begins to lift, here is what I see.

"My uncle used to tell me he was too poor to pay attention. News that the economy is rip-roaring, with crashing unemployment and rising wages, is lost on most rural Americans we surveyed right now, even with those who say they are better off than before. The price of things — a gallon of gas, a dozen of eggs — has knocked rural communities off course and money is not what it used to be.

"And a measurable part of the rural population is pissed. They have had it with oil companies, drug makers, and distant corporations who care not a whit what country people are going through. Rural people are of two minds about government in that, one, they want it out of the way, and two, they want it to intervene to create new jobs in rural America.

The following are comments made by participants in the focus group sessions. "Focus group participant from Wisconsin: 'It's really difficult not to fall into the trap . . . where you really do start to internalize it and think 'Well I must be a failure, because I don't have what my parents had. I certainly don't have what my grandparents had.'. . . A participant from Kentucky: 'I'm in survival mode every day.'. . . Participant from Ohio: "I'm really worried about the kids because it's way worse than a lot of people realize. Like so many of them are depressed and anxious and don't know what to do. Losing hope, being suicidal. I mean children, like little children even, we are not even talking teenagers. And they need hope. They need to see something get better. Some reason to become an adult.'

"Our analysis of these rural focus groups showed us:

• People want to share their stories and be heard, but they often feel ignored: misunderstood and maligned by the media.
• People are struggling with loss — loss of status, wealth, a valued role — but they try not to give in to despair.
• People will act out of hope in situations where they can receive and offer community support. Being of service to others is a valued purpose.
• People in our groups want to push back against partisan politics and culture war rhetoric."

Go here to read the about the complete polling analysis.

Opinion: We could end poverty. 'Why don't we do it?'

Census Bureau graph

In 2021, U.S. poverty hit the resounding record low of 7.8% -- a good thing, but only a reprieve. Once pandemic benefits ended and inflation shot upward, the number of Americans living in poverty soared, with the Supplemental Poverty Measure posting a near 60% increase, with 11.4% of U.S. citizens living in poverty in 2022. "And it's all because politicians allowed proven income support programs to expire," writes Lakeisha McVey in her opinion for OtherWords.com.

"I'm an expert on poverty. I've lived it most of my life in Iowa. I studied it as a Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow in rural West Virginia and in Washington, D.C., and now I help people experiencing poverty across the country tell their own stories to change policy.

"People can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, get an education, and work multiple jobs. But in the face of rising prices, low wages, high rents, and a broken healthcare system, it's often not enough. Without a safety net and a level playing field for families, financial security is often out of reach.

"When I was growing up in Des Moines, my mom had a stable job with the state, but her pay wasn't enough for a real home for my two siblings and me. Iowa, like every state, has a low-income housing crisis. And families of color like mine experience greater challenges obtaining affordable housing. We bounced around shelters, churches and motel rooms.

"Despite a stigma about accepting public assistance, we benefited from SNAP (aka 'food stamps') and the Women, Infants and Children program. But like other low-income families, we had to navigate the 'benefits cliff.' When my mother made just $10 more, we'd lose the benefits we needed for sufficient, regular meals.

"My father suffered from opioid addiction. When he was eventually able to get stable employment and rejoin our family, we finally got an apartment where the schools were decent. But a brain aneurysm suddenly took his life, and we ended up back on the opposite side of the city where the underfunded schools offered less opportunity.

"I wanted to stay in my school, so I spent four hours a day commuting on public buses and on foot. I knew I needed to get into college to be able to help my family financially. Now I have a steady job, and so does my husband.

"But everyday struggles don't end. The brokenness of our healthcare system burst into my life again when our baby was born with a fatal condition. The medical costs ran nearly $1 million in just the first few months of his tragically short life. . . . What could prepare someone for that?

"Thankfully, my employer pays 100% of my health insurance. That's a rarity. If I'd been out of work or worked elsewhere, we would've gone bankrupt as we suffered the most tragic thing that could ever happen to us as parents.

"These are just a few of the structural obstacles low-income people face every day. But there are solutions. The advocates I work with reported enormous relief after politicians finally agreed to invest in helping children and families during the Covid-19 crisis.

"The expanded Child Tax Credit cut child poverty nearly in half. Expanded food programs through SNAP lifted more than 3 million people out of poverty and staved off an expected spike in hunger. Housing subsidies kept nearly 2.5 million people out of poverty and in their homes. And Medicaid enrollment protections reduced the number of uninsured people by 1.5 million.

"The year those programs were implemented, the Supplemental Poverty Measure fell to 7.8% — its lowest ever level. But when politicians rejected continuing this vital help for families, it increased by a record amount. This is a failure for families across the country. We need to renew and expand those programs as soon as possible. . . . Poverty is solvable. We know what works. Why don't we do it?"

Lakeisha McVey is a bereaved mother, social justice advocate and leader of the Experts on Poverty Program at RESULTS.

The loss of timber jobs left this county awash in poverty, violence and tree poaching

The Guardian illustration

Illegal tree harvesting is not ordinary in some parts, but it can become a person's primary source of income in lands where national parks and environmental concerns have ebbed out timbering employment. "Timber poaching exists at a confluence of this rural economic decline and environmental policy," reports Lyndsie Bourgon of The Guardian. "A number of poachers in Orick, California, detailed their motivations as an alchemy of poverty, lack of opportunity, drug misuse and resentment toward national parks, the federal government and environmentalists. . . . It's a snapshot of how rural communities across North America face de-industrialization, the ways they have failed to transition away from those dependent economies, and the people who remain rooted through the change."

Bourgon writes about Danny Garcia, a man who grew up in Orick, a Humbolt County town along California's Redwood Coast. Garcia was born into a beleaguered rural economy and became a tree poacher. Bourgon writes, "Redwoods National Park was instituted in the 1960s, then expanded in the 1970s, and in the late 20th century, the town was not spared from the Pacific north-west's timber wars. Orick's logging industry began to shrink, then all but disappeared as mills and lumber companies closed or moved." 

Alongside life in rural Orick, Garcia lived with the violence and trauma that often accompanies poverty. "By the early 1990s, Garcia's mother had died by suicide. His grandfather and many of his uncles were killed in logging accidents, traffic accidents and by drowning. Some spent time in prison; some used hard drugs. One of his aunts told me about the assaults she and her friends had experienced in the town from husbands, boyfriends, and other family members."

The sociologist Jennifer Sherman, a professor at Washington State University, studies unemployment's effects on rural communities in California and Washington. She told Bourgon, "Domestic violence is a huge part of my work. It seems to accompany poverty wherever poverty goes." Bourgon reports: "Humboldt leads California in violence against women; in particular, Indigenous women (close to 50% of Indigenous women in Humboldt are victims of domestic violence, according to Humboldt county domestic violence services). . . . Humboldt County averages 50% more domestic violence-related police calls per capita than the rest of California, and of those, close to half include a weapon."

Do you have to leave Appalachia to find opportunity? One woman did and wants the region to receive more attention

Melissa Smith, center, left her Appalachian home behind
in search of a better life. (Melissa Smith photo via Fox News)

An upbringing surrounded by drug use, crime and poverty made one woman leave her Appalachian home in search of opportunity. She compares the region's problems to intercity issues, reports Teny Sahakian of Fox News. "Melissa Smith, 26, managed to leave her family and her hometown behind four years ago to build a better life, but she fears communities like hers will continue to rot without more attention. National media outlets report daily about the rampant crime and drug use afflicting major cities across the country. But Smith feels the Appalachia region as a whole doesn't get the same level of consideration, causing them to suffer in silence as they face similar issues."

Smith told Sahakian, "I just pray that something could be done, some opportunities could be created, rehabs could be made more readily available, and these people can get help and realize that there is a better life. But at the moment, it's just not talked about. Nobody talks about it." Sahakian reports, "Smith's grandmother raised her and her siblings in a trailer park in Corbin, Kentucky. Her mother, who struggled with drug addiction, was in and out of jail for most of her childhood. . . . Most of the kids she grew up with had at least one parent addicted to drugs. . . . Smith said she recently watched a YouTube video that featured interviews with Black Americans living in a poor area of California. She was shocked to hear how similar their stories were to her own."

The first wave of the opioid epidemic hit Appalachia during the 1990s and continued to gain steam through the 2000s when coal mine closures happened in quick succession. Smith said the pairing "ignited a cultural and economic downward spiral in rural areas across Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee and other states in the region," Sahakian writes. "Although the entire nation is facing a drug crisis, Appalachia is disproportionately impacted, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission. In 2020, overdose deaths of people ages 25 to 54 were 61% higher in the region compared to the rest of the country."

"Smith said many kids she grew up with are now either on drugs, in jail or dead from an overdose and that methamphetamines, rather than opioids, have become the drug of choice ravaging her community," Sahakian reports. "Most families rely on welfare checks or selling drugs to get by, she said, and with only one factory remaining in her town, the ability to work hard and improve one’s life seems impossible. . . Between 2001 and 2021, employment in Appalachia only grew 1.5% compared to 12% for the rest of the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics." Smith told Sahakian: "They really don't have the opportunity to kind of improve or pull themselves up by their bootstraps."

Changing how the federal government defines 'persistent poverty' areas could hurt rural communities, writers say

A 'centroid' is a circle with its center at the center of a geographic shape. (Economic Innovation Group map, via The Daily Yonder, based on census data and five-year estimates from Census Bureau's American Community Survey, a national poll)

Changing how persistent poverty is determined could reduce rural communities' chances of receiving federal aid, report Keith Wiley and Joe Belden for The Daily Yonder: "In a detailed new report, the Economic Innovation Group says that using counties as the unit of evaluation for 'persistent poverty' means that poor urban neighborhoods get overlooked when their economic performance is averaged with more prosperous parts of an urban county. The result is a picture of persistent poverty that skews rural. . . . That problem could be addressed by looking at persistent poverty in census tracts, a smaller geographic measure, rather than in the traditional focus on counties."

Persistent poverty is now defined by county. Counties "where more than 20% of the population has lived below the federally defined poverty level for 30 years" are included, the Yonder reports. How long-term poverty is measured is significant because it decides which areas qualify for "special federal support" to address the problem.

"The U.S. has 415 persistently poor counties with 20.5 million people. The South is home to 81% of these counties, and 84% of the 415 counties are non-metro," Wiley and Belden explain. When census tracts are used, the picture skews urban. "Over 9,400 census tracts are persistently poor and have a population of 34.2 million people. The population increase in going from a county to a census tract methodology is in metropolitan areas. The study recommends defining persistent poverty areas as those with four contiguous persistently poor census tracts."

Rural areas already struggle to get "government assistance and lack the dedicated funds, which larger communities receive" through grants/entitlements," Wiley and Belden write. That means more rural areas have to compete for assistance "rather than [receive funding] in the guaranteed entitlements received by larger urban areas. . . . These smaller places often have the least capacity to produce a winning proposal."

Should the definition of "persistent poverty" change, a series of unintended consequences could unfold, leaving more of rural America without needed assistance as the definition refocuses efforts in urban areas that often have the advantage of shouldering more urban, resourced areas. It is easier to "invest in an area in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area than an isolated Central Appalachian county," Wiley and Belden add. "Part of what makes persistent poverty counties chronically poor is their isolation and difficulty to serve."

They acknowledge, "It is true that the current definition on a county basis does overlook persistent poverty pockets in urban/suburban areas. These communities need investment and focused policies, something that should be promoted. Overall, this very important and ground-breaking study deserves consideration. But would focusing on census tracts rather than counties lead to less attention to rural poverty? Rural advocates need a seat at the table."

Farm Bill will be late; neither party has presented their version of it as Congress focuses on the federal budget

The omnibus Farm Bill has a lot of proverbial eggs in
its basket. (Photo by Autumn Mott Rodeheaver, Unsplash)

 

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) confirmed that this year's Farm Bill has been delayed to the point that Congress will need to extend the 2018 Farm Bill, reports Chuck Abbott of Successful Farming: "It was the first direct acknowledgment by one of the 'four corners' of farm policy — the House and Senate Agriculture committees leaders — that the 2023 Farm Bill would be late."

"Congress often misses its Farm Bill deadlines, sometimes by a year or more, despite early vows to move with due speed and complete work on time," notes AgInsider of the Food and Environment Reporting Network. The last two bills have been delayed by Republican efforts to expand work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. This year's Farm Bill looks to be another battleground for SNAP, among other items. Abbott reports, "The 2023 Farm Bill is expected to be the most expensive ever, with chapters on commodity subsidies, SNAP, ag research, rural development, crop insurance, food aid, export promotion, farm credit, forestry, and land stewardship. Conservative Republicans are expected to propose limits on access to SNAP."

"The chairwoman, Debbie Stabenow, is continuing to work toward a bipartisan bill that can be signed into law by the end of the year," a Senate Agriculture Committee spokesman told Abbott, who notes, "Several farm-state lawmakers have used similar language, framing the goal as presidential enactment this year rather than by Sept. 30, when provisions of the 2018 law begin to expire. Dairy would be the first commodity to be affected, on Jan. 1."

Congress is working on this year's federal budget, which is supposed to start Oct. 1, and "The Farm Bill would take secondary importance," Abbott writes. Neither the House nor Senate have presented their "first-round Farm Bill draft. . . .Thompson said he would unveil his version of the bill and seek a committee vote when GOP House leaders reserve a week for floor debate of the legislation." Thompson told Abbott: “The whole sequence is driven when leadership gives me a week, and maybe that will be in September. Maybe it won’t. I don’t know.”

When coal is no longer king in Appalachia, what's next? Symbolic funeral in new film has both pride and remorse

Elaine McMillion Sheldon's film depicts growing up
in the shadow of coal. (Sundance Film Festival Photo)

Not every place has a king, but in Appalachia, one lives, more humbly than ever: Coal. Film-maker Elaine McMillion Sheldon gives the world an enigmatic look at a fossil fuel's kingdom and its people in her movie, "King Coal."

Sheldon grew up "roving around West Virginia. Like many children of Appalachia, her world was shaped by coal – her father worked for a mining company, and the family moved to seven coal fields in 12 years for his job," reports Adrian Horton of The Guardian. "Her brother became a fourth-generation miner." Sheldon told Horton: "Everybody in my community worked in the coal mines. If you were going to stay there and work, if you weren't a doctor or a lawyer, that's what you did." Only when Sheldon left the region to study abroad, did she realize how much coal infiltrated Appalachian life. "Not everywhere has a king," she told Horton. "Not everywhere is completely dominated by this industry that controls everything from our rituals to the ways we live our life."

Sheldon's documentary "blooms in the resource's shadow," Horton writes. "It's a lyrical and visually lush ode to a region of immense richness, to mountains riven by extractive industry, to identity-shaping labor and unions, to the inheritance of coal culture. There are no location markers, no delineation between towns, states, mines, mountains." Sheldon told him, "We just define it as the kingdom," a common culture and economy without strict borders.

Sheldon shot all over the Appalachian coalfield, from Pennsylvania to Tennessee. She told Horton, "I'm very aware of how people perceive Appalachia. . . . . I grew up feeling that the place I was from was somewhere to be embarrassed of, and I don't want people to feel that. . . . I want people to see that it's a beautiful place, that there's actual hope here and resilience here." Sheldon says in the film, "Maybe you've heard a story about us. . . . This story is about what it's like to live under King Coal."

The film follows two Appalachian girls, one white and one black, through their lives under coal's reign. "The girls harken to Sheldon’s bygone youth and also point forward, to a life less molded by coal," Horton writes. "As Sheldon puts it in the film, coal has been leaving Appalachia for as long as she’s been alive – in barges downriver, in profits reaped elsewhere, in flattened mountaintops and contamination, in lost jobs." Sheldon told Horton: “If you just look at the facts and figures of mining employment, none of this makes any sense. . . . People just want to work. They’re happy to do other work if it pays the same and provides the same amount of stability, but the coal industry hasn’t provided that stability for many years. And so the question now is, what’s next?”

"To begin answering the question, Sheldon staged a symbolic funeral for King Coal, which serves as the film’s conclusion," Horton writes. "She invited real people with real connections to mining to send off the resource economy as they saw fit, in song or in prose." Sheldon told Horton: “To some people, King Coal is the greedy industrialists, and to some people, he’s the person that provided their jobs." Horton adds, "To Heather Hannah, a singer from Thomas, W.Va., who offered a gut punch of a coal eulogy, it was 'the paradox of pride and remorse. How my daddy was proud to do what needed to be done, to work the mines and provide for our family. I learned that you can be proud of your life, and want better for them that come after you.'”

Removal of people from Medicaid rolls, mostly because they don't follow procedure, starts to hurt rural health care

Looking for help at an office in Arkansas, which has aggressively
cut Medicaid rolls. (Photo by Andrea Morales for The Washington Post)

About 4 million Americans have been taken off the Medicaid rolls this year, most of them for reasons unrelated to their eligiblity, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health-policy organization.

"Three-fourths have been removed because of bureaucratic factors," reports Amy Goldstein of The Washington Post. "Such 'procedural' cutoffs — prompted by renewal notices not arriving at the right addresses, beneficiaries not understanding the notices, or an assortment of state agencies’ mistakes and logjams — were a peril against which federal health officials had cautioned for many months."

When the pandemic began, the governments suspended the annual renewal process, in which Medicaid beneficiaries certify their eligibility. Now that process has resumed, and federal officials are finding problems with how states are handlign it. Nine states have agreed to pause removals from the rolls, but the removals are beginning to undercut health care in rural areas, which are more dependent on federal health programs.

"The large proportion of beneficiaries in some states tumbling into the ranks of the uninsured is starting to hurt clinics and hospitals that focus on low-income patients — especially in the poorest states, such as West Virginia, where about 1 in 3 residents have relied on Medicaid," Goldstein reports. At the clinics of Cabin Creek Health Systems, patients arrive every day only to find that they are not covered, Executive Director Craig Robinson told Goldstein: “It’s a total failure, this unwinding.”

Goldstein reports, "At West Virginia Health Right, a Charleston clinic with 43,000 patients at three sites, the number covered by Medicaid fell by about 1,600 in May and June, the first two months of that state’s unwinding, according to Angie Settle, the clinics’ chief executive. The number of uninsured patients, usually fairly stable, rose by about the same number during those two months. Settle said the unwinding is putting a strain on the staff as new people show up for medical services they can no longer afford — and a strain on finances as more people show up for medications for which no one else is paying the costs."

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says 34 states "have been out of compliance with at least one federal requirement," Goldstein notes, "but even some states that meet all the federal rules have high rates of people being dropped from the program for paperwork reasons, mystifying state officials and patient advocates alike."