Economic Insecurity: The Struggles and Resilience of the North Country
While many, especially in cities and suburbs, may know something about what poverty looks like in their communities, do they have any real awareness of what economic insecurity and poverty look like in rural areas? My experience growing up in rural Costa Rica is also different from rural life in the United States. After moving to the North Country in New York, a region on the northeastern border with Canada that encompasses seven counties (St. Lawrence, Franklin, Essex, Jefferson, Lewis, Clinton, and Hamilton) where just over 2% of the state’s population lives, I became interested in understanding the community where I now live. This interest is part of my motivation to explore the issue of economic insecurity and poverty in the North Country.
For this research, I drew on data and reports from governmental and independent entities, as well as sources on the history of the region and, most importantly, interviews with local people doing grassroots work, activism, research, or community service. These interviews are a vital part of the story since they offer the human perspective on processes that may otherwise seem quite abstract. For this first article, I spoke with Teresa Veramendi, former social justice coordinator of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton and activist with the North Country Poor’s People Campaign. She shared her perspective and experience as an activist and professor regarding economic insecurity in the region.
In this article, I seek to go beyond simply presenting statistics to illustrate the scope of poverty or economic insecurity in the North Country. I want to show how the limited understanding of poverty, as a threshold defined by institutions, obscures our awareness of people’s struggles to cover their necessities and of the systemic issues causing economic insecurity. Beyond this, I explore the intersection of social class with other identities such as gender and race while also highlighting the importance of grassroots work. Overall, I hope to generate more empathy for our neighbors and encourage support for the people working to improve their communities.
“As these towns become depopulated and face changes, residents notice that the neglect of their towns and communities has led to a decline in their economic security. Beyond the situation in their particular households, they see the neglect in their communities when their medical infrastructure fails, when their schools close due to budget constraints, and when the difficulties in keeping local businesses open feel personal.”
In doing this work, I write from the perspective of a cisgender, Afro-Latina, and able-bodied woman who has had the opportunity to access higher education abroad, despite coming from rural Costa Rica. That being said, my intention is neither to speak for the community nor to stigmatize the region as inherently economically insecure, but rather to understand the structural issues that create such a reality.
Using the past to understand the present
The United States emerged as a predominantly rural nation-state where small towns were the building blocks. European settlers exploited and expanded on Indigenous land to live off agriculture, mining, and cattle ranching. Although small towns remain essential to the country’s identity, the population has gradually concentrated in large cities and suburbs. In the process, the public focus shifted away from rural areas in a way that limits understanding of the complexity and diversity of rural life today.
As these towns become depopulated and face changes, residents notice that the neglect of their towns and communities has led to a decline in their economic security. Beyond the situation in their particular households, they see the neglect in their communities when their medical infrastructure fails, when their schools close due to budget constraints, and when the difficulties in keeping local businesses open feel personal.
These scenarios are quite relevant to the experience of people living in the North Country. The differences between rural and urban New York go beyond population size to encompass a range of economic matters. For example, the North Country’s median household income, in every county, is below the state’s median income.
What is economic insecurity and how does it relate to poverty?
Economic insecurity refers to “the risk of economic loss faced by workers and households as they encounter the unpredictable events of social life”. While there are unexpected events in every person’s life, such as death or illness, some can't rely on an appropriate support network to overcome these difficulties. Economic security can be understood as a cushion that softens the fall. This cushion might be made of capital, access to credit, physical ability, educational attainment, immigration status, house ownership, or other resources.
“While the high poverty rates in the region show the harsh economic landscape of many households, this information does not provide the whole picture of how families and individuals in the North Country are struggling to make ends meet. Despite not falling into the poverty bracket, many households and individuals, as per the federal government’s threshold, often continue to struggle financially to afford necessities such as health insurance, food, and childcare.”
The lack of such a cushion, or the stress related to the lack of it, can make us more prone to suffer illnesses, accidents, or instability in our financial situation. Although not all economically insecure people are poor, poverty is a key factor since it hinders a household or individual’s ability to cover necessities such as food, health, and housing.
Poverty in the North Country
The US Census Bureau’s definition of poverty “uses a set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition,” and these do not change based on geography. While they do take into account inflation, they don’t count tax deductions, capital gains, or non-cash benefits. Examples of these thresholds include: an individual under the age of 65 who earns less than $13,465 annually is below the poverty line, or a family of two with two dependents earning less than $20,852 is considered poor.
Generally speaking, poverty rates in the North Country have been above those of New York State as a whole. For example, in the list of ten New York counties with the highest percentage of the population living below the poverty line, St. Lawrence and Franklin rank sixth and seventh, respectively. Also, in these two counties, the child poverty rate is way above the state average. The New York State Community Action Association, an organization that aims to enhance the impact of community action about poverty, reports these poverty rates by North Country county:
While the high poverty rates in the region show the harsh economic landscape of many households, this information does not provide the whole picture of how families and individuals in the North Country are struggling to make ends meet. Despite not falling into the poverty bracket, many households and individuals, as per the federal government's threshold, often continue to struggle financially to afford necessities such as health insurance, food, and childcare.
Rethinking the definition
Given the limited conceptualization of poverty in governmental institutions, some alternatives designed to broaden the understanding of economic insecurity have entered the conversation. For example, the category of ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, and Employed), seeks to raise awareness about the status of households whose income is above the federal poverty line yet who don't earn enough to afford basic costs in their county. The organization United for ALICE seeks to provide data, language, and resources to understand the situation of economically insecure working households to drive solutions.
“Even when a household or individual is not categorized as poor, they may still be economically insecure. Moreover, it is vital to consider how the intersectionality of each individual makes economic insecurity affect them differently. In the case of the intersection of patriarchy and capitalism, we find a structural environment that is hostile to the economic security of households headed by single mothers in the North Country.”
In the North Country, a high percentage of households can be considered ALICE. According to John Bernardi, CEO of United Way of the Adirondack Region, 44% of North Country households fall into the ALICE category. Bernardi also explains that according to ALICE's data, a four-person household in the North Country would have to earn almost $60,000 in order to afford necessities without assistance or, in the case of a single individual, would have to earn about $23,000. This contrasts sharply with the $26,246 or less than a family of four would have to earn or the $13,465 or less an individual would have to earn, in order to be considered poor according to the federal poverty threshold.
Poverty from an intersectional perspective
By looking at the intersection of poverty with social identities such as gender, age, and race, one can understand how different systems of oppression intersect to create unique life experiences. Sometimes social identities can give us systemic advantages, but they can also create multiple difficulties for social mobility. In the North Country, the intersection of gender and social class plays an important role. For example, in all of the region's counties, the poverty rate for females is higher than for males. In addition, in almost all counties, a significant percentage of households headed by women with dependent children meet the federal definition of poverty:
Teresa Veramendi, the former social justice coordinator of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton and activist with the North Country Poor People’s Campaign, explains the importance of connecting gender and class:
When we talk about the poor 75% percent of the poor are children and women. So most of those children are being cared for by women. So that means that actually, we're talking about women…This (economic insecurity) intersects with the right for an abortion because by not allowing women to have choices over their bodies, we are keeping them in poverty...That's one way to do it, is to say, well, too bad if you can't afford it, you have to live with it.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the oppression created by the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy. The pandemic led to a major displacement of women, both cis and trans, from the workplace throughout the United States. Many women worked in restaurants, retail stores, and daycare centers, and approximately 5 million lost their jobs between March and November of 2020. As V (formerly Eve Ensler) notes, most women who kept their jobs are frontline workers who have been at great risk throughout the pandemic since about 77% of hospital workers and 74% of school staff are women.
Veramendi shares that the pandemic “really opened it up for me [in terms of] thinking of all the women leaving the workforce, all the women taking care of relatives, unpaid labor, of course, and how that rolls out. So it's been a big impact on women.” Given the traditional understanding of gender roles in the workforce and the family, these changes did not have the same impact on men, or at least on gender-conforming men.
Taking intersectionality into account in this way, we can see that data on poverty in the region cannot fully explain the reality of economic insecurity in the North Country. Even when a household or individual is not categorized as poor, they may still be economically insecure. Moreover, it is vital to consider how the intersectionality of each individual makes economic insecurity affect them differently. In the case of the intersection of patriarchy and capitalism, we find a structural environment that is hostile to the economic security of households headed by single mothers in the North Country.
Resilience and Local Activism: the Poor People’s Campaign
Nonetheless, in response to the challenges the region faces, community members have organized to keep each other afloat. One of those examples is the North Country Poor People’s Campaign that was founded after 2018 when approximately 1,300 New Yorkers participated in 40 days of action to launch the Poor People's Campaign nationwide. Veramendi, who has participated actively in the North Country PPC, emphasizes that the group tries to cover all seven counties in the region. “It's way too much space for us to ever be in one place,” she acknowledged, “so we try to hop around to different cities and towns to do different actions. We still meet every month on the third Tuesday of the month.”
The mission of the campaign goes back to 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. called for a "revolution of values" in the United States. This led to the creation of a movement that sought an alliance among the poor classes of the nation. Veramendi explains that King identified three main issues, “poverty, race, and militarism, and said, you know, all of these are intertwined and they cannot be addressed separately. We have to look at all of them together. So we added ecological devastation fifty years later. But it's the same fight. And in some ways, things are harder than they were in 1968.”
The organization’s agenda also recognizes the disproportionate effect that some of these power dynamics have on rural areas. In response, the campaign’s demands emphasize the need for water infrastructure in rural areas since “of the 20 counties with the highest percentage of households lacking access to complete plumbing, all were rural and 13 had a majority Native American or Alaskan Native population.” This emphasis reveals the PPC’s intersectional approach to poverty.
Likewise, the North Country chapter has collaborated with the Black Lives Matter movement through forums on economic and racial injustice. Veramendi notes that they held “about a two-hour series of brief presentations, mostly discussions with the people who came, and then we'd follow that event with the Black Lives Matter march.” This is an example of how the organization applies an intersectional approach to its work while also incorporating collaboration, networking, and dialogue to build resiliency among community members.
“I suggest that many of the answers can be found in the work of local activists and grassroots organizations since they are most knowledgeable about the community and have worked for hand in hand with the people who experience these problems. Supporting them by volunteering, sharing resources, or disseminating their information can be useful ways to propel these initiatives forward. ”
Despite these successful meetings and events, the campaign faces challenges in operating and creating momentum among its target audience. For example, Veramendi explained that the label “poor” itself is stigmatizing for most people and may hinder their will to join the campaign. This is because many people in the region do not want to identify themselves as such. She also mentioned how the dominant culture blames the individual for struggling financially and shames people who use social assistance programs.
Finally, Veramendi pointed out one more rudimentary difficulty for the campaign: “poor people don't necessarily have the time to organize.” The amount of time a person has available as a worker is limited, and the stress associated with an economically constrained life can diminish their ability to devote time to an organization. Especially in the North Country, a geographically dispersed region complicates matters of accessibility for older, less affluent, and disabled people.
How can we move forward?
You may wonder, what are my solutions to all these problems? And I must humbly admit that I don't have them. Instead, this journey of learning about the North Country and the people working to improve their community has left me with several questions. In what ways have we glamorized hardship and worshiped individualism to such an extent that we have commodified the most basic needs, such as housing, healthcare, and food? How can we become a society in which caring for others and helping others is not stigmatized, and more importantly in which poverty is not stigmatized? What changes are needed for the North Country to be a sustainable community where its members have the opportunity to grow, feed, care for themselves, and cultivate solutions as they see fit?
I suggest that many of the answers can be found in the work of local activists and grassroots organizations since they are most knowledgeable about the community and have worked for hand in hand with the people who experience these problems. Supporting them by volunteering, sharing resources, or disseminating their information can be useful ways to propel these initiatives forward.
I also think there is an important lesson to be learned here about expanding our understanding of poverty. First, when we take into account that there are many more financially precarious households and individuals who are not considered poor by federal standards, we realize that the problem of economic insecurity is much larger than we may sometimes perceive. To me, this demands greater empathy from us as a community.
Second, the fact that nearly half of the region's households are struggling month after month to meet basic needs suggests that we need a more communal and collective approach to these systemic problems, one that goes beyond the individualism and profit-oriented understanding that dominate our vision of economic and social well-being. In my upcoming articles, I will continue to explore economic insecurity from the angle of food security and employment in the North Country region.