The Poorest County in each State (article)

Mjmksb04

http://money.msn.com/family-money/the-poorest-county-in-each-state-mainstreet-slides

I am kind of calling BS in the methods they used, because it lists Isabella county as Michigan's poorest county and the article cites the high number of rentals. But....Isabella county has a college town ( Mt. Pleasant, home of Central Michigan University), which explains the rentals and probably skews the numbers. I work in northern MI, and can tell you there are probably many counties that are far less affluent then Isabella. Anyone else have input on the county they chose from your state?

mrsbecky07

Maryland's is not surprising, since Baltimore City is its own county (and the poorest one in the state).  So it has more population than a lot of the other counties that I would be inclined to think might have been on the list for Maryland (namely counties on the eastern shore and then out in the mountains) so that it has a larger number of people living in poverty and a poverty rate of almost 25%. 

copzgirl

I would like to see a complete breakdown of my state.

mlwooten

CT's doesn't surprise me.  Windham is poor. It has state university and is right next to Uconn. 

 

marie427

Bronx County, which actually does surprise me. I know there are seriously impoverished neighborhoods in the Bronx, but I would have assumed affluent areas like Riverdale would have skewed the results upward. I was expecting a rural, less populous county in Northern New York to show up.

EloiseWeenieSkipperdee

mrsbecky07:

Maryland's is not surprising, since Baltimore City is its own county (and the poorest one in the state).  So it has more population than a lot of the other counties that I would be inclined to think might have been on the list for Maryland (namely counties on the eastern shore and then out in the mountains) so that it has a larger number of people living in poverty and a poverty rate of almost 25%. 

My first thought for MD would have been a county on the Eastern Shore, but Baltimore County wasn't very surprising.

For NC, Robeson county makes sense.   

mrsbecky07

EloiseWeenieSkipperdee:

mrsbecky07:

Maryland's is not surprising, since Baltimore City is its own county (and the poorest one in the state).  So it has more population than a lot of the other counties that I would be inclined to think might have been on the list for Maryland (namely counties on the eastern shore and then out in the mountains) so that it has a larger number of people living in poverty and a poverty rate of almost 25%. 

My first thought for MD would have been a county on the Eastern Shore, but Baltimore County wasn't very surprising.

For NC, Robeson county makes sense.   

Not Baltimore County though - Baltimore City, which is separate, and does make sense.

ETA: and the bing link they supplied is wrong, bc it links to Baltimore County, but the blurb clearly states Baltimore City.  Baltimore County would surprise me as being the poorest in the state, Baltimore City does not.

EloiseWeenieSkipperdee

mrsbecky07:

EloiseWeenieSkipperdee:

mrsbecky07:

Maryland's is not surprising, since Baltimore City is its own county (and the poorest one in the state).  So it has more population than a lot of the other counties that I would be inclined to think might have been on the list for Maryland (namely counties on the eastern shore and then out in the mountains) so that it has a larger number of people living in poverty and a poverty rate of almost 25%. 

My first thought for MD would have been a county on the Eastern Shore, but Baltimore County wasn't very surprising.

For NC, Robeson county makes sense.   

Not Baltimore County though - Baltimore City, which is separate, and does make sense.

ETA: and the bing link they supplied is wrong, bc it links to Baltimore County, but the blurb clearly states Baltimore City.  Baltimore County would surprise me as being the poorest in the state, Baltimore City does not.

 Oops, I meant Baltimore City.  I'm still in a groggy wake up state. 

 

brideymcbriderson

A 52-page slideshow?  They couldn't give us a friggin' list?  I wanna know Wisconsin's, but I don't feel like clicking through a zillion slides on my dinosaur of a work computer.

mcgee

Not surprised by Louisiana's... East Carroll Parish. My parents grew up there, back when the little town they lived in was cute and quaint and the lake in Lake Providence wasn't polluted. It's been a massively depressing place for as long as I can remember.

mrsbecky07

brideymcbriderson:

A 52-page slideshow?  They couldn't give us a friggin' list?  I wanna know Wisconsin's, but I don't feel like clicking through a zillion slides on my dinosaur of a work computer.

Wisconsin's poorest county: Menominee

• Poverty rate: 29.8%
• Poverty rate of residents under 18: 47.9%
• Median household income: $31,509

(I was already on Maryland ha.)

 

The richest counties in the country (linked somewhere else on that page) were really interesting to me as well.

LXLX

brideymcbriderson:

A 52-page slideshow?  They couldn't give us a friggin' list?  I wanna know Wisconsin's, but I don't feel like clicking through a zillion slides on my dinosaur of a work computer.

Wisconsin's poorest county: Menominee

• Poverty rate: 29.8%
• Poverty rate of residents under 18: 47.9%
• Median household income: $31,509

 

Another of the small counties on our list, Menominee has a population of 4,232 and makes up an extremely small percentage of the state's total population.

eclaires

Indiana's poorest is Monroe, home to IU.  I think the results are obviously skewed by the stats having a huge university included with a transient population.

Also, no offense to IU fans/grads, but lots of people choose to stay there when there are little to no job opportunities b/c they like Bloomington.  My brother and his wife live there and he works landscaping 9m of the year, takes unemployment the other 3 and she works part time at nights as a receptionist at the hospital to have insurance for their family.  They basically barely get by, but it's 100% a choice for them.  If they lived elsewhere in the state, they would have a lot more opportunity.  They both have college degrees (from IU) but don't want to leave.  And I mean, they really could have much better jobs - my dad owns his own business that my brother would have a job at if he lived near them.  They are only one example, but I know a lot of people like them (friends and family). 

brideymcbriderson

Thanks, Lucille and MrsBecky.

I wish web designers/writers/whoeverthefuck is in charge would get a clue and ditch slideshows.  Or at least make it so there are never more than 5 slides.

eclaires

Kentucky - Owsley - not surprised.  I guessed it would be a county in the eastern part of the state.  That area is seriously depressed.  And depressing.

TN - surprised it is one that is on the Missouri border.  I would have guessed one in the NE corner of the state near the mountains.  That area scares me.  

BQBride

I want to see this in a format that doesn't requiring clicking through 152 slides.  WTF were they thinking?

taratru

I'm not surprised by Colorado. 

Mrs.Handy

I know nothing about Lee County in VA.

But I was not surprised to see my county as #5 on the richest counties in the U.S.

TefLepOM

brideymcbriderson:

A 52-page slideshow?  They couldn't give us a friggin' list?  I wanna know Wisconsin's, but I don't feel like clicking through a zillion slides on my dinosaur of a work computer.

amen

RedheadBaker

Go, Philly! We're #1! We're #1! 

Oh wait . . .

Seems like we're always at the top of some "Worst . . . " list. Dirtiest, Rudest, Most Obnoxious Sports Fans, Fattest, etc.  

nikki57

I'm not surprised by Massachusetts.  Suffolk county contains Boston, but also a number of the poorest communities in the state.

mcgee

Where is the link to the richest counties? I must have missed that.

Sisugal

I did not look up the counties in the UP of MI - but surely there are some that have higher poverty rates than Isabella.

jillboston

I can't believe that there are some counties in some states (AL, MS and KY) that the median income is under 25K. I honestly can't imagine that. I believe it is true - just mind boggling that there are places in the U.S. that people are that poor.

penguingrrl

I'm a little surprised by NJ, although I admittedly know very little about Cumberland County. I expected Camden County since Camden is so scary, although many of the surrounding suburbs are quite affluent, so I guess that throws the county off that list

mominatrix

Ditto on the slideshow hate.

 

 

The Massachusetts one (Suffolk) actually surprised me. I totally expected it to be one of the more rural counties in Western Mass.

My guess is that the poverty rate in Suffolk county is higher, but that the median income in the rural counties is way lower. That $50K median would be living very well in some of those counties.

 

As for WA, like many other counties on the list that PPs are discussing, Whitman county is the home of Washington State University (and precious little else).

mxolisi

So having clicked through all 52 I now know that if a state has any Native American to speak of the place(s) where they are concentrated will be poorest. Not surprising. 

I think I've been to at least 6-7 of these counties for recreational purposes. Good hiking/kayaking destinations tend to be pretty destitute it seems.  

wise_rita

When I first looked at North Dakota it showed a water tower of a town nowhere near the county in the article, taken directly off Wikipedia.  It has since been changed.

meshaliu

brideymcbriderson:

A 52-page slideshow?  They couldn't give us a friggin' list?  I wanna know Wisconsin's, but I don't feel like clicking through a zillion slides on my dinosaur of a work computer.

At least your work computer has the capability to display the slides. I can't even click through. *shakes fist*

grahamsm3

Maine's poorest county: Washington

That was my guess, they are one of the counties that are always discussed as being poor. It's pretty well known that that area is economically depressed. It's on the coast, but not the tourist coast.

But really, there are only 16 counties in ME and I bet at least 8 have similar stats to Washington.

marie427

jillboston:

I can't believe that there are some counties in some states (AL, MS and KY) that the median income is under 25K. I honestly can't imagine that. I believe it is true - just mind boggling that there are places in the U.S. that people are that poor.

I know. But when I think about my own budget, a lot of my expenses would either be much lower or completely gone if I were from a poor and/or rural county. I don't think I could live off of $25k even with lots of my big expenses cut or eliminated, but I could probably survive on not that much more than that.