Stimulus Funds Miss Hardest Hit States

by Megan Cottrell · 2010-08-13 13:40:00 UTC
Topics:

Remember the promise that stimulus money would be funneled to the places that needed it most?

That's not exactly what's happened.

An analysis by ProPublica and the Patchwork Nation project show that the places hardest hit by the recession have gotten the least amount of stimulus dollars per person.

To figure this out, they relied on Patchwork Nation's map of all of America's counties, divided into 12 different categories based on who lives there, how they vote and what the economy is like. Of those 12 different categories, there are five types that have fared the worst in the recession: wealthy suburban counties,  predominately black counties, big cities, conservative religious communities and small town service worker counties. All these kinds of counties had unemployment rates topping 10 percent.

So if those are the types of places that have fared the worst, you might expect that if you made a list where the most money went, those kinds of counties would rise to the top. But no. The list is almost turned upside down, in fact. Big cities did a little better, placing in the top six.

Where, instead, is stimulus money going?

Well, places that didn't need at as much. For example, rural, farming counties — what Patchwork Nation calls Tractor Counties —got an average of $1,282 per person in stimulus dollars, even though their unemployment rates are less than seven percent. Meanwhile, of those five poorly faring types of counties we listed, none of them got more than $1,000 per capita.

On the state level, it doesn't get any better. Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the U.S., but ranks 46th in stimulus funding.

With the economy stalling again, there's new talk of a second stimulus. Some economists are calling for another $50 million in government spending to get the economy going again and quell further layoffs. It may be a good idea, but if we're going to do this again, let's learn a little something from the first time around. The most money should go to the states that are hurting the most. End of story.

Photo credit: Kevin Dooley

Megan Cottrell is a reporter and writer living in Chicago. She blogs about public housing and poverty at One Story Up.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Can We See Some ID?
NEXT STORY:
Is the NCAA Putting Student Athletes at Risk?

COMMENTS (2)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.