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SALT LAKE CITY — Poverty is growing twice as fast in the suburbs compared to metropolitan cities, according to a new report.
New statistics from a Brookings Institution book found the suburban poor grew by 64 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2011. Salt Lake City ranks third as the fastest poverty stricken suburbanites.
More than 157,000 people in the Salt Lake area live below the poverty line — and 73 percent of those are in the suburbs. Experts say not all these people are homeless, but they live on the edge. Many are only two-weeks away from losing their homes. Some have already had to move home with their parents, or declared bankruptcy.
The problems start when people buy homes, or too many assets, they can no longer afford. Either they charge up credit cards, and can't make minimum payments; or they have lost their jobs and no longer have income to pay for big ticket purchases, they found.
