Poverty up in Hub suburbs

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A Brookings Institution report due out today estimates the ranks of suburban Boston poor grew by 39,000 people between 2000 and 2008 to hit 281,500.

That’s a far bigger gain than the roughly 350-person increase researchers found in Boston and Cambridge proper, where Brookings estimated some 120,000 poor people lived as of 2008.

“A lot of people have this entrenched view of poverty being an urban or rural phenomenon, but the geography of poverty has changed,” said Brookings analyst Elizabeth Kneebone.

Brookings found suburban Boston’s poverty rate - the percentage of people living below the official poverty line of $21,834 for a four-person family - rose from 6.7 percent in 2000 to 7.6 percent in 2008.