Cost of Living Variation, Nonmetropolitan America, and Implications for the Supplemental Poverty Measure

Abstract

Poverty scholarship in the United States is increasingly reliant upon the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) as opposed to the Official Poverty Measure of the United States for research and policy analysis. However, the SPM still faces several critiques from scholars focused on poverty in nonmetropolitan areas. Key among these critiques is the geographic adjustment for cost of living employed in the SPM, which is based solely upon median rental costs and pools together all nonmetropolitan counties within each state. Here, we evaluate the current geographic adjustment of the SPM using both microdata and aggregate data from the American Community Survey for 2014-2018. By comparing housing costs, tenure, and commuting, we determine that median rent is likely an appropriate basis for geographic adjustment. However, by demonstrating the wide variability between median rents of nonmetropolitan counties within the same state, we show that the current operationalization of this geographic adjustment could be improved through the use of more-specific categories such as metropolitan adjacency or Rural Urban Continuum Codes.

American Cancer Society’s report on the status of cancer disparities in the United States, 2023

“…Compared with White people, for example, people of color generally were more likely to have lower educational attainment and to experience poverty, food insecurity, and housing insecurity in 2021 (Figure 5); e.g., the proportion of people aged 18–64 years who did not own a house was about twice as high among Black people (55.3%) as among White people (28.2%). Similar disparities existed by place of residence, especially in younger ages, except that the proportion of individuals who did not own a house was smaller in nonmetropolitan areas, likely because of the lower average price of houses in those areas 50 …”

“…Similar disparities existed by place of residence, especially in younger ages, except that the proportion of individuals who did not own a house was smaller in nonmetropolitan areas, likely because of the lower average price of houses in those areas. 50 Through their effects on occupation and income, social determinants of health have a substantial influence on insurance coverage, which is a major determinant of access to and receipt of health care services and cancer outcomes in the United States. [51][52][53][54] Compared with insured individuals aged 18-64 years, for example, the proportion was also substantially higher among people with lower education or income levels and in the South region (Table 5).…”

The Changing Landscape of Affordable Housing in the Rural and Urban United States, 1990–2016*

“…Declining affordability is a problem shared between metros of all sizes and nonmetro areas both near and far from metro areas. This study builds upon past work that documents that cost of living varies less between urban and rural areas than what is generally perceived (Mueller et al 2021; Nord 2009). While the general decline in affordability is shared between different types of counties; the reasons as to why are not.…”

“…This switch in disparity is attributable to the SPM's adjustment for geographic variation in cost of living (i.e., median rent)—benefiting rural areas. This geographic adjustment has been critiqued in that it masks variation in cost of living within rural areas, and as such it is likely that even when accounting for rural‐urban variation in cost of living a rural disadvantage remains (Mueller et al 2021; Pacas and Rothwell 2020). These rural disadvantages suggest that shifts in income and housing costs are more likely to be unequal in rural areas—resulting in significant changes in affordability—and that the potential effects of demographic and economic change may be smaller in urban areas than in rural areas.…”

Migration Across Metro‐Nonmetro Boundaries and Hourly Wages☆

“…The rural disadvantage in earnings should be interpreted with the spatially different living costs in mind. Rural living costs, especially housing prices, tend to be lower than those in nonrural areas (Hawk 2013; Mueller, Brooks, and Pacas 2022). However, this rural advantage in living costs may not negate the rural disadvantage in earnings.…”