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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhere Are the Hardest Places to Live in the U.S.? (New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/upshot/where-are-the-hardest-places-to-live-in-the-us.htmlThe New York Times
Where Are the Hardest Places to Live in the U.S.?
JUNE 26, 2014
Annie Lowrey writes in the Times Magazine this week about the troubles of Clay County, Ky., which by several measures is the hardest place in America to live.
The Upshot came to this conclusion by looking at six data points for each county in the United States: education (percentage of residents with at least a bachelors degree), median household income, unemployment rate, disability rate, life expectancy and obesity. We then averaged each countys relative rank in these categories to create an overall ranking.
(We tried to include other factors, including income mobility and measures of environmental quality, but we were not able to find data sets covering all counties in the United States.)
The 10 lowest counties in the country, by this ranking, include a cluster of six in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky (Breathitt, Clay, Jackson, Lee, Leslie and Magoffin), along with four others in various parts of the rural South: Humphreys County, Miss.; East Carroll Parish, La.; Jefferson County, Ga.; and Lee County, Ark.... MORE at link provided above.
For a related article on this subject published in the NYT Magazine on the 26th, please see this thread in Appalachian Group:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1272290
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)From the article:
Here are some specific comparisons: Only 7.4 percent of Clay County residents have at least a bachelors degree, while 63.2 percent do in Los Alamos. The median household income in Los Alamos County is $106,426, almost five times what the median Clay County household earns. In Clay County, 12.7 percent of residents are unemployed, and 11.7 percent are on disability; the corresponding figures in Los Alamos County are 3.5 percent and 0.3 percent. Los Alamos Countys obesity rate is 22.8 percent, while Clay Countys is 45.5 percent. And Los Alamos County residents live 11 years longer, on average 82.4 years vs. 71.4 years in Clay County.
Clay and Los Alamos Counties are part of the same country. But they are truly different worlds.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)I just don't see how this disparity can continue.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)...in response to the thread linked in the OP, "What's the Matter With Eastern Kentucky?". That link again, to Appalachian Group, is http://www.democraticunderground.com/1272290
May thanks to JDP for contributing a very thoughtful post on the subject of rural poverty.
betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)and force people to go into debt for college loans, so they can build nukes and lobby the government for a living? This article has a much more conservative slant than people realize. How do they know for sure the disabled of these areas are simply unemployed people? Poverty tends to lead to disability for a variety of reasons.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)As you suggested, most of those are the results of poverty: poor health caused by food inadequacy, lack of medical services (including prenatal and pediatric care), contaminated environments, bodies prematurely aged by dirty and dangerous jobs. In some areas like Appalachia there's also a much older demographic, as the young have left to seek employment elsewhere.
Places like Appalachia have neither the infrastructure nor the type of educated workforce that would attract modern businesses, especially those in the technology fields. Further, those who do obtain college educations don't return, leaving a terrible brain drain away from areas needing their skills the most. It's a maddening catch-22 and frankly, I don't feel there's the political will in this country to solve this ever-growing problem.