Rural Poverty Research Center

THE RURAL POVERTY Research Center (RPRC) was established in 2002 as the result of a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. It is housed jointly at the University of Missouri-Columbia and Oregon State University, and is part of the Rural Poverty Research Institute (RPRI). The RPRC has as its mission “to examine both the causes and the consequences of poverty in rural areas and the factors affecting the success of policies to improve the self-sufficiency and well-being of low income workers and families in rural America.” The goals of the center are to help create an integrated research [Page 933]agenda for rural poverty, to strengthen capacity to explore that agenda, and then to involve and engage with policymakers to put into practice recommendations drawn from research findings. This entails conducting research and hosting working paper series written by external researchers, providing mentoring and coaching services for young researchers, offering opportunities for researchers to become affiliates of the RPRC, and organizing conferences and other events where knowledge may be transferred and networking activities can take place.

Although poverty rates in the United States have declined over the last decades, there are still some seven million rural poor in the country and rural poverty rates are significantly higher than urban rates. Most, indeed 90 percent, of the 500 poorest counties in the country are rural, and 95 percent of persistently poor counties are rural. Urban poverty tends, in other words, to be less endemic than it is when it afflicts rural areas.

Four trends inform the RPRC's research agenda: “Persistent poverty appears to be concentrating in rural counties. High barriers to economic self-sufficiency in rural areas continue to yield worse outcomes for rural workers and families. Rural communities still do not have the capacity to provide work and family supports that lead to success in the labor market. Policies to improve the well-being of low-income families are becoming less effective in rural relative to urban areas.” The poorest areas in the United States are clustered in the south, Appalachia, and the southwest.