Fewer People Living in Poverty Areas in 2015-2019

The share of the U.S. population living in poverty areas declined in the second half of this decade, dropping below levels a decade earlier, according to recent data.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015-2019 5-year American Community Survey (ACS) shows the percentage of people in the United States living in poverty areas – defined as census tracts where at least 20% of the population lives in poverty – increased between 2005-2009 and 2010-2014. It then decreased in 2015-2019 to a lower level than in 2005-2009.

These changes reflect the broader economic trends of the last decade.

The data cover a 15-year period that included both the Great Recession (December 2007 to June 2009) and the subsequent period of economic expansion. Data collection for the 2015-2019 ACS concluded in December 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Living in communities with high poverty concentrations exposes residents to several challenges, such as poor housing conditions, limited job opportunities and high crime rates. Government programs often target resources to these high-poverty neighborhoods.

Figure 1 shows the percentage of people living in poverty areas varied in the states with some sharp regional differences.

The Census Bureau defines four regions: Northeast, South, Midwest and West. Six of the seven states with over 30% of their population living in poverty areas were in the South region.

In the 2015-2019 period:

• 21.1% of the U.S. population lived in poverty areas, ranging from a low of 5.2% in New Hampshire to a high of 42.4% in Mississippi.
• In seven states, all in the South except for New Mexico, and the District of Columbia, at least 30% of residents lived in high poverty areas. In Mississippi and New Mexico, at least 40% of people lived in high-poverty areas.
• In seven states, 10% or less of the population lived in poverty areas. These states were spread across the country: three in the West, two in the Northeast, one in the South and one in the Midwest.

The percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty areas changed during the 15-year period stretching from 2005 to 2019. 

In the 2005-2009 period, 21.3% of the nation’s population lived in poverty areas.  During the 2010-2014 period, this increased by 6.4 percentage points to 27.7%.  The rate then declined by 6.6 percentage points to 21.1% in the 2015-2019 period.  

From 2005-2009 to 2015-2019, the percentage of people living in poverty areas in the United States fell by 0.2 percentage points.  But there was more variation between these two time periods at the state level (Figure 2). 

From 2005-2009 to 2015-2019:

• The percentage of people living in poverty areas increased in 25 states and decreased in 23 states and the District of Columbia. The change was not statistically significant in two states.
• In three states — Nevada, Delaware and Florida —the percentage of the population living in poverty areas rose by more than four percentage points.
• In four states (Washington, North Dakota, Colorado and Texas), the slice of the population living in poverty areas dropped by four percentage points or more.

The report, Changes in Poverty Rates and Poverty Areas Over Time: 2005 to 2019, provides more information on changes in poverty areas in the United States. Percentage of People in Poverty by County: 2015-2019 is an interactive visualization that shows changes in county level poverty rates by Hispanic origin and race.

Em Shrider and Craig Benson are survey statisticians in the Poverty Statistics Branch.