Poverty Growth Rate in Suburbs Grows Dramatically

A national study finds suburban poverty is growing almost five times faster than the poverty rate in metropolitan areas – but Louisville is an exception. Those are the results of the latest study from the Brookings Institution.Study co-author Elizabeth Kneebone says they looked at statistics from the 95 largest cities in the U.S. from 2000 to 2008.“In 2000, there were are 400-thousand more poor living in the cities compared to the suburbs, and just in this eight year span of time, we’ve seen that tip to a degree, that 1.5 million more poor live in the suburbs than the primary cities, so the rate of growth we’ve seen in the suburban areas is remarkable," she says.Nationally, the poverty growth rate in suburban areas is about 25 percent, compared just over five-percent in the metropolitan areas.In Louisville, though, the poverty growth rate in the city center and the suburbs is about two-percent.