Poverty pervades the suburbs

Poverty in America is not in the inner cities, nor is it the rural parts of America; it is in the suburbs of America. A staggering 15.4 million people living in the suburbs lived below the poverty line according to a Brookings Institution analysis of Census data. The analysis also showed that the people living below the poverty line rose 11.5% from last year. As the economic status of America and the job situation continues, more people are losing their jobs and becoming poorer and poorer. The burst of the housing bubble also contributed to the poverty in the suburbs. The suburban poor are not just the minimum wage earners, but the middle class who lost their jobs in the Great Recession. As there are services to help the impoverish, but they do little good in the suburbs as they are not used to the number of people living below the poverty line. Another reason why these services do little good is that some people do not have the knowledge of where to go for help and some people are ashamed to ask for government assistance for fear of being precieved as poor. Many people donate to charities and organizations that help the poor in the inner cities and rural areas, they don't however, realize that people are living below the poverty line in the suburbs.