Poverty is rising swiftly in the suburban portions of all six of Minnesota's congressional districts that include at least some of the suburbs, a new report says.

The report comes out of Washington but responds to questions that are arising in Minnesota as well: What might be the political implications as poverty increasingly spreads into traditionally Republican areas?

A new Brookings Institution study compared the 368 U.S. House districts that take in at least some suburbs of big cities.

For Minnesota, the results indicated that five of the six districts fall within the top 15 percent nationally for steep, quick rises in poverty rates.

Most had low rates of poverty to start with, so the numeric changes didn't rank as high.

The 20,000-person increase in Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen's Third District in the Minneapolis suburbs, for instance, placed only 61st. The 16,000 in Republican Rep. John Kline's Second District ranked 99th.

Still, the rise in poverty is just part of a cluster of demographic changes that may make suburban congressional seats more competitive.

The rise in poverty results from a number of factors, including efforts to spread out subsidized housing and the economic bust. The downturn hit hard among modest-income residents drawn to suburbs by factory and service jobs in outer-ring suburbs such as Burnsville and Shakopee, which saw big spikes in racial and ethnic diversity.

Conservative politicians have shown acute awareness of the trends and have taken visible steps to react, such as Kline's July jobs fair in Eagan.

A major storyline for the past decade has been a tendency for suburban poverty, once associated just with the inner ring, to move outward. And the Brookings study underscores that it's hardly confined to the Twin Cities.

Indeed, write authors Alan Berube, Elizabeth Kneebone and Jane Williams:

"The suburbs of Republican districts were somewhat more likely to experience poverty increases than the suburbs of Democratic districts. Fully 93 percent of Republican districts experienced an increase in the suburban poor population (173 of 187) compared to 83 percent of Democratic districts (151 of 181) between 2000 and 2007-11," the years covered by a Census Bureau survey that combines samples from different years to enhance accuracy.

"The best thing about the findings is that this trend might foster more of an 'all in this together' mentality between urban core and suburban ring," said Dane Smith, president of Growth & Justice, a Minnesota think tank that aims to reduce economic inequality. "It makes poverty reduction and relief more of a shared obligation." □

David Peterson • 952-746-3285