America's poorest towns, state by state
Poverty in the United States is not uniform and varies from place to place. Still, each state — no matter how rich — has some poor towns. In every state, there was at least one town with a median annual household income thousands of dollars lower than the state’s median income. In Cumberland, Maryland, and Cairo, Illinois, the difference was far greater — each had median household incomes at least $40,000 lower than the states’ income figures.
Socioeconomic indicators, such as low educational attainment rates, largely explain the low incomes in many of these towns. The poorest towns in only three states had a college attainment rate that exceeded the national rate of 28.8 percent. In contrast, the richest towns in all but six states had a college attainment rate greater than the national rate. And in 30 states, more than 50 percent of residents in the richest towns had at least a bachelor’s degree.
Since every state must have a poorest town, and some states have far higher incomes than others, a state’s poorest town was not always especially poor compared to other states or the nation. Alaska, for example, had a median household income of $70,760 — the third highest nationwide. Its poorest town, however, Ketchikan, had a median household income of $52,266, roughly in line with the national income figure, and higher than the typical household income in many states.
In other instances, the poorest town in a given state served to illustrate the high income inequality in the state. In New York, which had one of the higher median household incomes compared to other states, the poorest town, Kaser village, was among the poorest towns in the nation. The difference between the towns with the highest and lowest annual income exceeded $100,000 in just 10 states.
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