How County Poverty Rates Changed From 2013-2017 to 2018-2022

Poverty status is determined by comparing annual income to a set of dollar values (called poverty thresholds) that vary by family size, num­ber of children and the age of the householder.

If a family’s before-tax money income is less than the dollar value of their threshold, that family and every individual in it are in pov­erty. For people not living in families, poverty status is determined by comparing the individual’s income to their poverty threshold.

The poverty measure excludes children under age 15 not related to the householder and people living in institutional group quarters, college dormitories or military barracks.

The poverty rates in this article are based on the official poverty measure and are different from the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The SPM differs in a number of key ways such as the factoring in of additional resources and expenses not included in the official poverty measure as well as geographic variation in poverty thresholds.

During the 2018-2022 period, county poverty rates ranged from 1.6% to 55.8% (Figure 1).

Counties with the lowest poverty rates in 2018-2022 included: Borden County, Texas (1.6%); Morgan County, Utah (1.7%); Sterling County, Texas (1.8%); Falls Church independent city (considered a county equivalent), Virginia (2.3%); McCone County, Montana (2.4%); Kenedy County, Texas (2.6%); Douglas County, Colorado (3.0%); and Stanley County, South Dakota (3.2%) among others. These estimates are not significantly different from one another at the 90% confidence level.

Three counties in South Dakota – Oglala Lakota County (55.8%), Todd County (52.2%) and Mellette County (49.1%) – were among those with the nation’s highest poverty rates. All three are in the western part of the state and are home to American Indian reservations. These estimates were not significantly different from one another at the 90% confidence level.

Figure 2 shows the share of total counties per census region along with the percentage of counties in the high and low map categories. The total counties category indicates the percentage of U.S. counties in the region.

Of the 172 counties in the highest poverty category (poverty rates of 25% or more), 142 (more than 80%) were in the South, compared to 45% of total counties.

The 219 counties in the lowest poverty category (poverty rates of less than 7.0%) were more evenly dispersed around the nation. Approximately 44% were in the Midwest, compared to 34% of total counties; 28% were in the South.

Just less than 10% of all counties in the South were in the high poverty category. No other region had more than 3.1% of its total counties with poverty rates of 25% or more. The four regions had a range of 4.4% (South) to 9.6% (Northeast) of its counties in the low poverty category.

Changes in county poverty rates from the last 5-year period (2013-2017) to the most recent (2018-2022) show where and what economic changes have occurred over a longer period.

The national poverty rate decreased 2.0 percentage points to 12.5% and 1,144 counties­ — more than 36% — had a significant change in poverty rates (Figure 3).

Poverty rates decreased in more than one-third (1,042) of all counties. Only 102 counties experienced an increase in poverty rates compared to 2013-2017. It should be noted that counties that have had geographic changes over this period were not used in the comparison and are identified in Figure 3 as counties with no data available.

Of the 1,042 counties that had lower poverty rates in the recent time period (2018-2022) 466 were in the South, 303 in the Midwest, 191 in the West and 82 in the Northeast.

In the West, 42.7% of all counties had lower poverty rates, while in the Northeast poverty rates decreased in 39.2% of all counties, 32.8% in the South and 28.7% in the Midwest.

Among the counties where poverty rates increased, 49.0% were in the South and 30.4% in the Midwest. There was less of a regional difference where poverty increased. In all regions, between 2.9% and 3.5% of counties experienced poverty rate increases from the 2013-2017 to 2018-2022 period.