Trickling Down: Are Rural and Rural Poor Family Incomes Responsive to Regional Economic Growth? Institute for Research on Poverty, Discussion Papers No. 210-74.

The past decade has seen a number of studies of how the poverty incidence (the percentage of families below the poverty line) of certain demographic groups changes in response to economic growth. The question of whether regional economic growth trickles down to rural and rural poor families was examined by statistically estimating the relationship between family income change and multicounty regional economic growth for a sample of 669 rural Wisconsin families with white, nonaged, nondisabled heads of household. These families, surveyed in 1968, were grouped according to farm poor, farm nonpoor, rural nonfarm (RNF) poor, and RNF nonpoor. Ordinary least squares regression was used to estimate the relationship between family income change and the two indicators of regional economic development (income growth and job growth) over the period 1965-67. The results indicated that poor farm families did not get a proportional share of additional regional income growth. Rural nonfarm nonpoor families appeared to be similarly unable to share proportionately in additional regional income growth. While farm nonpoor and RNF poor families did appear to respond somewhat to regional income growth, it appeared that, on the whole, additional regional income growth could be expected to widen the income gap between urban and rural families. (Author/NQ)