Four kinds of U.S. anti-poverty programs were analyzed in terms of their impact upon the rural poor. Examination of 13 rural Community Development Corporations (CDC) in terms of prior and present poverty of non-manager employees indicated the effect of these programs was one of merely changing the source of income rather than the stratification system, since the unemployed simply became employed in low skill, low wage jobs. A 1971 evaluation of five rural Concentrated Employment Programs indicated such programs could be characterized as manpower training for low wage work, since local institutions impeded the influx of competing industries and migration became necessary for workers to obtain adequate wage jobs utilizing their new skills. Critics have suggested that Nixon's proposed Family Assistance Plan failed because the Southern politicians recognized the fact that it was a program designed to affect the majority of the rural poor, particularly the rural black, and would, therefore, threaten the Southern status quo. Examination of rural cooperatives indicated that local business and political leaders generally opposed such efforts in order to maintain the status quo and that these same people also influenced funding. It was concluded that rural economic development programs must somehow circumvent the influence of those high on the stratification ladder. (JC)