On the relative well-being of the nonmetropolitan poor: an
examination of alternate definitions of poverty during the
1990s.1. Introduction Understanding the geographic distribution
of poverty is important to help target poverty-reduction
policies. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the proportion of
people living in poverty in the United States Poverty in the
United States refers to people whose annual family income is
less than a "poverty line" set by the U.S. government. Poverty
is a condition in which a person or community is deprived of, or
lacks the essentials for, a minimum standard of well being and
life. was significantly greater in nonmetropolitan than in
metropolitan areas. In the 1980s the average incidence of
poverty was 4.4 percentage points larger in nonmetropolitan
areas than in metropolitan areas, and in the 1990s the average
difference was 2.6 percentage points. (1) Although it is well
documented that the incidence of poverty, also called the head
count index, has been higher in nonmetropolitan