Extreme poverty doubled in Midwestern metropolitan areas from 2000 to the period of 2005-2009 and rose by a third in the South, according to the report.
Since the recession ended in June 2009, the U.S. jobless rate has averaged 9.5 percent, almost twice the rate of the decade prior to the start of the downturn. The number of Americans receiving food stamps rose to a record 45.8 million in August, and the housing market continues to drag on the recovery. Total sales of existing homes have continued to fall since reaching a peak of more than 7 million in 2005.
In another reflection of the impact of the slump, those living in extremely poor neighborhoods in the latter half of the decade were increasingly likely to be white with a college or high school education, homeowners, and not receiving public assistance, the Brookings report said.
The decennial census no longer asks questions on poverty and income, so the data now come from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, which pools five years of information. The fallout from the last recession likely exacerbated the situation since 2009, and estimates from 2010 indicate that poverty declines seen in some Sunbelt areas may have evaporated, the study said.
"Given that a strong economic recovery has failed to materialize and threats of a double-dip recession loom, it is unlikely the nation has seen the end of poverty's upward trend," the report concluded.
The biggest increases in the rate of concentrated poverty occurred in the Great Lakes metro regions of Toledo, Youngstown and Dayton, Ohio, as well as in Detroit and in the Northeast metropolitan areas of New Haven and Hartford, Connecticut, amid the loss of manufacturing jobs.
The findings for the Great Lakes metro areas capture the decline of the Detroit-based auto industry, said Ned Hill, dean of the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. A rebound in the industry since 2009, and a revival in steelmaking to supply parts for shale gas exploration, is causing some manufacturing jobs to return, Hill said.
The economic downturn increased the ranks of those who earn less than half the federal poverty level, $22,314 for a family of four in 2010. About one in 16 American workers made less than half the poverty rate in 2010, a 12.6 percent increase from 2007, according to a Bloomberg analysis of census data.
The percentage of very poor increased in 300 of the nation's 360 metro areas, according to census data.
Three of the five metropolitan areas with the highest percentage of very poor people in 2010 were in Texas. The College Station-Bryan metro area, home to Texas A&M University, had the greatest concentration of very poor people in the nation, with 16.4 percent of its residents earning less than half the federal poverty rate.