When Poverty Isn’t a Problem: The Minimization of Poverty in Three Rural Indiana Communities

• In Event: 30620 - Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1: Education, Poverty, and Inequality

Abstract

Though poverty disproportionately affects rural communities, rural poverty is not widely regarded as a problem worthy of significant political attention in the United States. This article draws upon data from 147 interviews conducted in three rural Indiana communities as part of a larger national-level, mixed-methods study of economic development strategies, community assets, and how they impact the livelihood strategies of low-income residents. Focusing on community leaders’ and rural residents’ responses to questions about poverty, we present four distinct arguments we heard used to explain away poverty and, thus, socially construct poverty as a phenomenon that is neither a local social problem nor worthy of local or national political responses. Respondents argued over definitions of poverty, remarked about its local visibility, believed low-income people to be taken care of by local institutions, and used culture of poverty rhetoric to minimize the degree to which poverty exists in their communities, all of which creates a barrier to the social construction of poverty as a social problem. This article provides insights into rural communities, rural poverty, and the social construction of social problems.

Authors

• Steven Tuttle, St. Joseph's University - Long Island

• Emily J. Wornell, Ball State University