Whether in large metropolitan areas or rural regions in the United States, the insular poor in America are usually housed in communities where they are further isolated from opportunities to generate income. In both the city and the country in the United States, the insular poor live on the literal margins of society. Because of their geographical position, they can be—and are—easily overlooked by communities of people who are economically stable or financially prosperous. The geographical dislocation of the insular poor, whether metropolitan or rural, also distances them from important opportunities, such as education, and makes it more difficult and costly to access basic goods and services. In this way, expenditures increase for people whose incomes are restricted (Kay, Powell, & Kearney 53). It costs more to travel to services. The greater the distance, the more likely that additional expenses will be incurred. When a single mother needs to leave home to buy food, for example, and the grocery store is miles away, she may need to hire a child care provider to ensure her child’s safety. Yet all of these expenses chip away at the tiny reserve that the insular poor have.
The greater the costs, the less opportunity there is to save. The less money saved, the less possibility there is for the individual to move out of poverty. The insular poor are thus trapped in a cycle of poverty from which there seems no escape. Because of their acute economic need, the insular poor often turn to services that they consider a temporary alleviation of their financial problems; but which only serve to further exacerbate the acuity of their poverty (Rank 41). Predatory lenders, for example, pitch their services to the most vulnerable insular poor who need immediate cash relief, even though they are unlikely to be able to return the payment and the exorbitant interest attached to it (Rank 41; Shapiro 111).
While the rural poor in the United States are affected by racism and other forms of institutionalized prejudice just as urban poor are, they may well be considered even more insular than the urban poor, and the causes of their insular poverty may be still more complicated. As the Rural Poverty Research Center in America emphasizes, “Rural places have different characteristics than urban areas—different access to resources,… economic structures, … institutions, …social norms, and… demographics—which in turn distinguish the causes and consequences of rural poverty from urban poverty” (3). In addition, despite the fact that “one in five Americans is rural, and a higher share of rural residents lives in poverty than urban (14% versus 11% for urban residents),” the insular poor of rural regions are probably even more invisible than the urban poor (Rural Poverty Research Center 3). Quite simply, we do not see the rural poor in the United States of America, and so we are not compelled to think about their conditions and their needs. For this and other reasons, poverty in rural areas tends to be more enduring and severe than it is in urban areas (Rural Poverty Research Center 3).
One of the causes that contributes to insularity among rural poor people in America is the fact that traditional methods of earning income have been disappearing in recent years. As agricultural production in the United States gives way to industrial and technological jobs, people in rural areas are left without jobs. Often, they have limited academic experience, educational background or professional experience in other areas that could facilitate a transition from agriculture to another sector of employment. The loss of this traditional way of life also has a severe psychological effect on many rural dwellers, and depression is certainly not conducive to efforts intended to recuperate financial stability and ensure long-term well-being. The causes of insular poverty among the rural poor may be quite different, but the consequences of insular poverty are similar. Insular poverty, especially when it is persistent, tends to trap individuals and communities in inescapable cycles of unemployment or substandard employment offering wages that are barely livable and which provide little or no opportunity for saving.
As insular poverty in the United States becomes more acute and debts accumulate, the insular poor often seek temporary solutions to their cash flow problems. These solutions to the problem of insular poverty, however, only serve to perpetuate the cycle of poverty, as they exact outrageous sums that are difficult, if not impossible, for the insular poor to pay. Perhaps the most damaging consequences of insular poverty, however, are psychological. Because the insular poor have been relegated to the literal margins of society, they are largely overlooked, and are often completely unseen, by people who are not part of their community. This makes the possibility of breaking through the insularity of poverty very unlikely.
