The Range of Policy Responses to High-Poverty Regions and Population Change in the United States and Germany

The purpose of the present paper is to examine the range of policy responses to poverty and population change in high-poverty regions of Germany and the United States. In Germany, many counties in the northeastern states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg experienced substantial population losses after unification, reflecting high rates of unemployment in those areas. All projections point to a continuation of this trend. In the United States, the three poorest regions are Central Appalachia, the lower Mississippi Delta and the Texas Borderland. The paper discusses reasons for why in some regions, population declines in response to unfavorable economic conditions and grows in other regions with similar conditions. It also highlights the changing role of the state over time and its difference between the two countries in explaining the differences in policy responses to poverty and population change in the four regions. The paper closes with a discussion of the implications of these policy differences for the regions.