‘Humbled To Ask For Help’ — Low-Income Communities Struggle To Recover After A Wildfire
“Fires, like all natural disasters, disproportionately affect those who are low income. They often lack insurance and resources to rebuild or move elsewhere. The effects on families and communities can be long-lasting. A paper published last year by the National Bureau of Economic Research analyzed 90 years of natural disaster data. It found that major catastrophes increase a county’s poverty rate — the percentage of people living below the poverty line — by an average of 1 percent. That’s because disasters encourage those who are well off to leave, and it makes those with low income poorer.”