Community Concentration of Poverty and Its Consequences on Nonmetro County Persistence of Poverty in Mississippi

In this article we examine differences in the spatial distribution of poverty within nonmetro counties in Mississippi, and the extent to which such differences might be related to the probability that a nonmetro county might be classified as persistently poor. This study contributes to the current literature by dividing the low-income population of the county between those residing in open territory and those within urban and rural census defined places (e.g., towns, villages, and municipalities). The premise is that the higher the share of the low-income population in a county residing within places, the higher the probability that the county will be persistently poor. The results indicate that, across counties with similar poverty rates, those with higher concentration of poverty are more likely to be classified as persistently poor. The results also show that concentration of poverty is especially problematic when low-income people are concentrated in rural places (less than 2,500 persons).