Poverty, Prevalences, and Penalties in U.S. States, 1993-2016

ABSTRACT Poverty is unevenly distributed within the United States – – a fact demonstrated by a rich literature on inequality in the US. By ignoring such variation, research runs the risk of overlooking the geographical distribution of poverty and risks that increase the likelihood of poverty. In this article, I address this by: (1) building on the prevalence and penalties framework, developed in cross-national scholarship, and applying it to the U.S. case given state autonomy in poverty policy; and (2) conducting longitudinal analyses using high-quality data derived from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS-ASEC). Through these analyses, I examine the extent of interstate variation in poverty and in the prevalence of risks and the penalties associated with those risks. Results confirm interstate variation in poverty similar to that seen across rich democracies – the focus of much cross-national comparative work – and demonstrate sizable differences in risks and their associated penalties that have grown rapidly since the welfare reforms of the 1990s. These findings have substantial implications for scholars and policymakers interested in understanding poverty and vulnerability in the United States.