Eva M. Clayton: “tomorrow this body will take up the reauthorization of the 1996 welfare law. Much has been said about this bill and no…”

“tomorrow this body will take up the reauthorization of the 1996 welfare law. Much has been said about this bill and no doubt debate will go on for some time. However, remarkably little has been said about one aspect of it, the rural aspect. It will not be surprising to Members of this body that there is a difference between urban and rural areas. In fact, let me just tell my colleagues, 237 out of the 250 poorest counties in the United States in 1998 were nonmetropolitan, and that persists today. One-half of rural American children and female heads of household live in poverty. Rural workers are nearly twice as likely to earn the minimum wage and 40 percent less likely to move out of low wage, entry level positions. Six out of 10 rural people in poverty do not own a car. The rural urban earning gap persists and actually has widened through the latter part of the 1990s. There is a gap of 73 to 70 percent. Mr. Speaker, as we look at making work an essential part of the welfare effort, and I believe that work should be, in fact I think work is very honorable and we should encourage everyone to find the satisfaction as well as the responsibility of doing something that is valuable to themselves but also will have income, but the reality is this: Labor markets in rural areas are often very limited. There is a high unemployment rate in rural areas because the opportunities are not there.”