ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a structural analysis of poverty which focuses on the creation of poverty positions within local labor markets. Poverty rates are argued to be primarily a function of local industrial structure and the relative power of labor to extract from employers good quality jobs. Social scientists have been relatively successful in identifying those individual characteristics that are most likely to land a person in poverty. The lack of relationship over time or for that matter across geographical space between "poverty credentials" and poverty rates should not be surprising. Some industries are more likely to generate high proportions of low quality, poverty level, jobs. Agriculture in particular, but also many of the emerging service industries provide many low wage jobs. The relative power of labor compliments the local industrial structure in determining the ability of labor market entrants to demand from employers good quality jobs.
