Once considered primarily an urban issue, poverty is becoming a larger problem in McHenry County, as it is in other suburban areas across the country.

Poverty has been trending upward in the suburbs for the past several decades.

Go back more than 30 years, and 75 percent of the greater Chicago area's poor resided within the city. Today, those living in poverty are split evenly between inner cities and suburbs. That trend is particularly pronounced in the Midwest. The lingering effects of the recession hasn't helped with unemployment still hovering around 8 percent.