The Poverty-Reducing Effect of Five Key Government Programs in Rural and Urban America

Federal programs are critical for helping those with low incomes make ends meet. But not all such programs are equally effective at reducing poverty, nor do they benefit all of those in poverty uniformly. In this brief, we explore the extent to which rural and urban residents access five social programs—Social Security, disability benefits, federal and state cash assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)— and the effect of these programs individually and collectively in bringing family incomes closer to the poverty threshold.After accounting for all resources and necessary expenditures (see Box 1), 12.9 percent of rural and 14.3 percent of urban residents are poor. Although their incomes remain below the SPM poverty threshold, more than seven in ten people living in poverty report income from at least one of the five types of programs examined here (Figure 1). The reach of each program varies by place type; for instance, poor rural residents are more likely to receive SNAP than their urban counterparts, who are more likely to receive the EITC.