Percentage Living in Poverty Increasing in Suburbs

Associated Press has called attention to a Brookings Institution report about Suburban Poverty that reveals how poverty has increased in the suburbs around 100 of America's largest cities.

The report shows that between 1999 and 2005 poverty in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area has increased by 2.0%, that poverty in the central city itself has increased by 3.9%, and that poverty in the suburbs around Oklahoma City has increased by 5.1%.

AP interviewed Alan Berube, a co-writer of the Brookings report, to learn some of the causes for the increase in poverty in American suburbs. Here's one of the causes he cited:

America's suburbs are becoming more diverse, racially and economically. "There's poverty really everywhere in metropolitan areas because there are low-wage jobs everywhere," Berube said.

It seems fairly obvious to me that the fastest way to address this as a cause for poverty is to increase the minimum wage.

To discover the rate at which poverty increased or decreased at a metropolitan area near you, you can download the report by clicking here.