More Than 1 In 9 Americans Live In Poverty

In 2022, the U.S. official poverty rate was 11.5% with a total of 37.9 million people in poverty.

This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the three-year average of poverty rates by U.S. state from 2020 to 2022.

The poverty rates are calculated using the official poverty measure, which defines poverty by comparing the pre-tax annual income to a specific national threshold adjusted for family size.

The figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau and are updated as of September 2023.

Southern U.S. Generally More Poor

U.S. poverty rates were relatively higher in the South.

Many of the states with the highest poverty rates, including New Mexico (18.2%), Mississippi (17.8%), Louisiana (16.9%), Arkansas (15.9%), and Kentucky (15.8%), are characterized by large rural areas which are historically poorer than urban areas.

State
Number of people in poverty (in thousands)
Percentage of population in poverty
New Mexico
382
18.2%
Mississippi
518
17.8%
Louisiana
765
16.9%
Arkansas
475
15.9%
Kentucky
706
15.8%
Oklahoma
620
15.8%
West Virginia
274
15.6%
Alabama
738
14.8%
District of Columbia
98
14.7%
Texas
4,026
13.7%
North Carolina
1,407
13.3%
South Carolina
693
13.3%
Florida
2,861
13.1%
Georgia
1,391
13.0%
Nevada
394
12.6%
New York
2,410
12.4%
Arizona
876
12.1%
Michigan
1,156
11.7%
Alaska
81
11.5%
Missouri
695
11.5%
Ohio
1,345
11.5%
California
4,439
11.4%
Tennessee
796
11.4%
Indiana
739
10.9%
Pennsylvania
1,368
10.8%
Montana
118
10.7%
Delaware
106
10.5%
Hawaii
146
10.2%
Connecticut
350
9.8%
South Dakota
86
9.7%
North Dakota
73
9.6%
Oregon
399
9.5%
Illinois
1,174
9.4%
Iowa
299
9.4%
Kansas
260
9.0%
Idaho
170
8.9%
Maine
122
8.9%
Rhode Island
95
8.8%
Wyoming
49
8.7%
Maryland
529
8.6%
Virginia
733
8.6%
Colorado
489
8.5%
Massachusetts
589
8.5%
Vermont
53
8.4%
Washington
637
8.3%
New Jersey
749
8.2%
Nebraska
159
8.1%
Wisconsin
467
8.0%
Minnesota
429
7.7%
New Hampshire
99
7.1%
Utah
235
7.1%

Many of these Southern states also have low levels of education attainment and labor force participation, which contribute to slow economic growth and lower personal income levels.

Nine of the 15 states with the lowest per-worker GDP are in the South, and states like Kentucky and Arkansas are among the states with the lowest prime-age employment-to-population ratio.

On the county level, about one in five counties in the South experienced “persistent poverty,” maintaining a poverty rate above 20% for three decades. Over 80% of all persistently poor counties in the U.S. are located in the South.