 |
| Herald-Leader graphic; click on the image to enlarge it. |
New Census Bureau figures show that Appalachia is still struggling to recover from the Great Recession, with nine of the poorest 30 counties in the U.S. in Eastern Kentucky, Bill Estep reports for The Herald-Leader in Lexington, Ky. One of them, Owsley County, has the third-highest poverty rate in the country at 45.2 percent. The other eight Kentucky counties in the top 30 are Clay, Martin, McCreary, Knox, Lee, Bell, Knott and Harlan.
Part of the problem is the declining coal industry, which has erased more than two-thirds of the coal jobs in Eastern Kentucky since 2011. Road improvement projects, new fiber-optic broadband lines and growth in work-from-home jobs are helping, but Owsley County Judge-Executive Cale Turner told Estep "There's not enough jobs."
The South as a whole is struggling, with almost 40 percent of its counties reporting a poverty rate above 20 percent in 2016.
The figures come from the Census Bureau's annual Small Income and Poverty Estimate, which provides the only single-year income and poverty statistics for all 3,141 counties and 13,245 school districts nationwide. The tables provide statistics on the number of people in poverty, the number of children younger than age 5 in poverty (for states only), the number of children ages 5 to 17 in families in poverty, the number of children younger than age 18 in poverty, and median household income. At the school district level, estimates are available for the total population, the number of children ages 5 to 17, and the number of children ages 5 to 17 in families in poverty.
from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2nxJuMJ New Census report says Ky. has nine out of the 30 poorest counties in the U.S. - Entrepreneur Generations
0 Response to "New Census report says Ky. has nine out of the 30 poorest counties in the U.S. - Entrepreneur Generations"
Post a Comment