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FLUKER,LA - MAY 5: Mary Alice Solomon (L), who is unemployed and illiterate, sits in her trailer as niece Shakira McKnight (R) sleeps May 5, 2009 in Fluker, Louisiana. Solomon's family couldn't afford to buy her glasses when she was a child and she never was able to learn to read. The highly impoverished rural town has very few jobs and no mayor. The recession has hit many Americans hard, but the rural Lower Mississippi Delta region has had some of the nation's worst poverty for decades. The mechanization of agriculture and movement of textile plants out of the country has left the region's economy in tatters, leaving generational poverty in its wake. Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal has rejected $98.4 million of the federal government stimulus funds for the unemployment reform package. The package allows states to expand eligibility, potentially assisting thousands of unemployed Americans to weather the recession. Louisiana's poverty rate is 19.2% � the second highest rate in the nation behind Mississippi.
