Across the country, more poor people live in suburbs than live in cities.
Perceptions have yet to catch up with how radically the geography of poverty has shifted, Kneebone said. Without an up-to-date understanding of the complexity of poverty, suburbs often don’t have the resources needed to help their impoverished populations, she said.
From 2000 to 2011, the number of Americans living below the federal poverty level ($23,492 for a family of four in 2012) rose about 36 percent, to 46.2 million. Meanwhile, the number of the suburban poor grew 64 percent.