Will broadband stimulus help end persistent poverty?

When I looked through the report that the Rural Utilities Service issued several weeks ago about the broadband stimulus funding it awarded, one of the sentences that caught my eye was the following:

“These projects overlap with . . . 124 persistent poverty counties.”

I wasn’t familiar with the term “persistent poverty” so I Googled it and learned that it’s typically defined as a county that has a poverty level of 20% or more over a period of several decades. I also learned that there are about 400 of these counties in the U.S., primarily in four rural areas—along the Rio Grande, in native American territories of the Great Plains, in Appalachia and in what Mark Partridge calls the “cotton belt” including parts of Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina.

Partridge is a professor in rural-urban policy at Ohio State University and one of his research areas is persistent poverty. He argues that there are a variety of reasons why certain counties experience persistent poverty. “Almost all of them are remote in some way,” he told me. “There is not a lot of spillover from large places, whether that’s jobs or good ideas.”

The professor’s predictions

When I asked Partridge what impact he would expect the broadband stimulus program to have on persistent poverty counties, he said, “One of the things we find is that if there are employment opportunities, that does reduce poverty.”

Although some people have argued that people in persistent poverty counties simply don’t want to work, Partridge said that’s untrue. “In this environment, construction jobs would be very welcome,” he said.

Partridge added, however that “what really matters is 'Can I make a difference over a period of decades?’”

Broadband stimulus programs are intended to do exactly that by giving people in remote areas better access to educational resources and by helping to create an environment where long-term jobs can be created. Based on what Partridge has observed from similar programs, he predicted that 20 years from now, we will be able to see that there were a few counties where the broadband stimulus program clearly made a difference in helping to lift the counties out of persistent poverty.

Why only a few?

Another characteristic shared by some persistent poverty counties is some sort of governance problem, Partridge said. “In some counties the power structure kept out competition from business,” he explained. “They didn’t want competition. They were not progressive in supporting education. They wanted to hold onto power at the expense of broader economic development and growth. If you’re an outsider, you don’t want to mess with that kind of setting.”

Partridge added, though, that you can’t gauge the impact that a program such as broadband stimulus has on a county simply by studying the same county again at a later date. The reason is that we have a mobile society. Some people in a persistent poverty county are likely to gain a higher level of education as a result of the broadband stimulus program and simply move out of the county to pursue better opportunities, Partridge said.

Do those who can simply leave?

Considering the money that has been spent on broadband stimulus, I realize some readers may be disappointed or even angered by what Partridge told me about the impact that broadband stimulus could have on ameliorating persistent poverty. But it’s important not to underestimate how broad the out-migration trend could be.

I grew up in the Detroit area, which has endured decades-long economic challenges of its own. Only one of my 12 or so best friends from high school still lives there. The rest of us found opportunities elsewhere—in no small part because we had the skills to do so.

If 20 years from now we can say that broadband helped today’s residents of persistent poverty counties achieve the same thing, I’d call that a success.