List of the 11 POOREST states in the U.S.A. (Fed Stats for 2009)

[tank_monkey]

1. Mississippi
2. Arkansas
3. Kentucky
4. Washington D.C. (not a state but they counted it)
5. New Mexico
6. West Virginia
7. Alabama
8. Louisiana
9. Texas
10. South Carolina
11. Tennessee

I could make the standard REDNECK joke, but seriously. I suspect the following: Texas and New Mexico are on the list because of their large MEXICAN populations and all the others are on the list because of their large BLACK populations. These groups tend to have a large level of abject poverty, period. Large enough groups of them will bring the overall state statistic down, if you don't already have a large money making sector to balance it off (like CA has with the high tech industry to counter the fact that we have tons of Hispanics).

Thoughts? What do YOU think makes these states the poorest in the nation?

For all the Kommiefornia bashers, need i say that California is nowhere near this list. Having the state government be broke is not the same as the residents/occupants being broke. All it means is that the state capitol can't raise taxes (by law thank GOD!!!) just to cover their over spending. But not having money to pay police/fire/sanitation/etc. sucks, but it doesn't mean all the citizens are living in poverty. It just means the tax base has fallen sharply off due to companies moving OUT.

[swampdragon]

Thoughts? What do YOU think makes these states the poorest in the nation?





They have less money.

[Richard Simmons]

Black population for those states as percentage of residents


http://www.ipoaa.com/us_black_population.htm

1. Mississippi 36%
2. Arkansas 15.5%
3. Kentucky 7.2%
4. Washington D.C. (not a state but they counted it) 60.1%
5. New Mexico 1.9%
6. West Virginia 3.2%
7. Alabama 29.2%
8. Louisiana 32.4%
9. Texas 11%
10. South Carolina 28.9%
11. Tennessee 16.1%




My belief is it has less to do with the racial makeup of the population and more with the type and number of jobs/industry or lack there of.

Example. Kentucky is #3 in poverty yet has 1/4 the black population of Louisiana which is #8. If it were just due to race, their position should be reversed.

[LAGC]

Are those stats for states that have the greatest amount of people living in poverty, or just average incomes overall? Because I know Texas has a pretty big economy, I'm kind of surprised it makes the list of poorest states.

[tank_monkey]

Are those stats for states that have the greatest amount of people living in poverty, or just average incomes overall? Because I know Texas has a pretty big economy, I'm kind of surprised it makes the list of poorest states.
Well it's also HUGE. With that sort of landmass, I figured that there could be just tons of "shack dwellers' who live in remote parts of the state. But even that doesn't explain the reversal of the state's economic numbers. What is Texas' biggest product/money maker right now? I don't know, any Texans here can help?

[El Laton Caliente]

How did they calculate it, just income? If it was not indexed for cost of living the result is VERY misleading.

If I moved from Texas to Kalifornia I would need three to four times the income to have the same standard of living...

[tank_monkey]

My belief is it has less to do with the racial makeup of the population and more with the type and number of jobs/industry or lack there of.

Example. Kentucky is #3 in poverty yet has 1/4 the black population of Louisiana which is #8. If it were just due to race, their position should be reversed.

Well, Kentucky has tons of poor whites I believe. I mean TONS. There is an entire subculture in the Appalachians that shun 'city dwellers'. So I think the 'hillbillies' are skewing the numbers there ;)

[El Laton Caliente]

Well it's also HUGE. With that sort of landmass, I figured that there could be just tons of "shack dwellers' who live in remote parts of the state. But even that doesn't explain the reversal of the state's economic numbers. What is Texas' biggest product/money maker right now? I don't know, any Texans here can help?

We still have more refinery and chemical plant capasity than anywhere in the world. Most of the large EPC contractors have major offices or headquarters here. There are about 100 fortune 500 companies headquartered in Texas. There are large numbers of industrial manufactorers here (think valves, instruments, pipe, compressors, etc.). Cattle and farming is still big here. Pulp, paper and lumber are down, but still in operation in east Texas. The oil fields and gas fields are still producing. Texas instruments, Compact and Dell are all headquartered here.

I'm not sure how they figured this because our employment rate is better than most states also...

[Kadmos]

Well, Kentucky has tons of poor whites I believe. I mean TONS. There is an entire subculture in the Appalachians that shun 'city dwellers'. So I think the 'hillbillies' are skewing the numbers there ;)

So your numbers trying to show that black and hispanic people drag down the states are skewed by the large number of poor white people?

Too many other factors. For instance West Virginia most of the money is in mining, so a few owners and lots of poorly paid workers.

Texas is even worse, most of the money is in oil and ranching, so a few more owners, but much more intensive even lower cost workers.

Sure Texas has gone high tech in some places, but the vast bulk of the money doesn't stay in Texas, it's a filtering point for brain work, the brains are there, but the money and product stays mostly outside of Texas.

If you take the 4 with the highest percent of blacks, excluding DC you have Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and you should easily note something else...all essentially coastal states, not a huge tourist draw (except New Orleans, where most of the money goes elsewhere also), all heavy into fishing, but stuck in an area with stocks that have been dwindling for decades. Biggest need is again low paid hard labor, processing fish, farming.

[Charliebravo]

How did they calculate it, just income? If it was not indexed for cost of living the result is VERY misleading.

If I moved from Texas to Kalifornia I would need three to four times the income to have the same standard of living...Exactly. A New Yorker living in a house the size of mine and having two cars and a motorcycle would have to be fairly wealthy. I think that Texas' numbers are being pulled down by the illegals that have settled in the valley. Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, etc. are all doing pretty well.

[Kadmos]

Interesting to note that they are all also pretty much traditionally Republican states.

[NRAJOE]

I'm surprised Ohio isn't on there...we've lost 400,000 jobs.

[Richard Simmons]

Interesting to note that they are all also pretty much traditionally Republican states.

You can actually say that about most of the states. not just the 10 poorest.

http://home.earthlink.net/~fsrhine/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/edumap.gif

[El Laton Caliente]

Texas is even worse, most of the money is in oil and ranching, so a few more owners, but much more intensive even lower cost workers.

Ag doesn't pay much but we are currently paying welders $28 to $36 per hour and most work a 50 hour plus week. That works out to $80K on the low end per year... Rig welders make about twice that...

You can also buy a 2000 SF 3-2-2 on a decent lot for under $200K... Much less in rural areas... My house is in the "poorest" county in Texas. Median household income (2008) is like $30K, but the median home cost is about $52K and the home ownership rate is 81%... Most people there work in forestry and timber.

These books are cooked.

[Kadmos]

You can actually say that about most of the states. not just the 10 poorest.

http://home.earthlink.net/~fsrhine/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/edumap.gif

Interesting, what is that from?

Last election results were fairly different

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

Still though, even in the last election, 9 out of 10 of those states were red states, only New Mexico went blue (and the DC thing obviously)

[Kadmos]

Ag doesn't pay much but we are currently paying welders $28 to $36 per hour and most work a 50 hour plus week. That works out to $80K on the low end per year... Rig welders make about twice that...

You can also buy a 2000 SF 3-2-2 on a decent lot for under $200K... Much less in rural areas... My house is in the "poorest" county in Texas. Median household income (2008) is like $30K, but the median home cost is about $52K and the home ownership rate is 81%... Most people there work in forestry and timber.

These books are cooked.

Well obviously you can make a good living doing something just about anywhere, but this is an overall generalization of the states, and in Texas case a rather large state. It's not hard to guess that there are a lot of poor people in areas that you simply do not go to...that's not unusual in any state.

And while you can make a good living, the bulk of the population is working in pretty low paying jobs, which of course is how you get those numbers.

[HDR]

Interesting to note that they are all also pretty much traditionally Republican states.


Could that be because the democrats punish Republican states?

Do they get less pork than Democrat states, yup.

lol

[El Laton Caliente]

Well obviously you can make a good living doing something just about anywhere, but this is an overall generalization of the states, and in Texas case a rather large state. It's not hard to guess that there are a lot of poor people in areas that you simply do not go to...that's not unusual in any state.

And while you can make a good living, the bulk of the population is working in pretty low paying jobs, which of course is how you get those numbers.

The poor areas are the Rio Grande Valley, inner City Houston and inner City Dallas. Many of the rural ag based areas have low income levels, except the farm owners who are "land poor" and "equipment poor" (all their money is in land and farm equipment).

I'm still saying the books are cooked...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003878839_homesales11.html

The median price for a single-family home in Seattle topped the half-million-dollar mark for the first time last month, the latest sales figures show.

That price, $501,000, was up 10.1 percent from last year's $455,000, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service reported Monday. (Median means half the houses sold for more, half sold for less.)

The report is unwelcome news to those already priced out of the local housing market.

A worker would have to earn $57 an hour — about $119,000 a year — to afford that Seattle home, according to the Seattle chapter of the Urban Land Institute.


The median cost house in my county is $52,000 and the median income is $30,306; housing is 1/10th the price of where you live...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Seattle

the median income for a family was $62,195

The people in my county make 1/2 what they do in Seatle, but pay 1/10th the price for a house. If you figure in the cost of living my county is RICHER than Seatle...

[mriddick]

Kentucky is on there but we also have pretty decent work regs which make the state unfriendly to illegals, it also has tough welfare laws which keeps out some of the entitlement class. Overall KY is the way America would be if immigration was held to a minimum and people looked to live without strings attached, I like it that way and think if much of the rest of America would slow down and stop selling out the US as much as they do we'd all be better off even if we weren't "richer".

[Richard Simmons]

How about this.

You have a liberal state with big unions and wealthy elite yet a large portion of the population is on public assistance. Compare that to a more conservative state where the majority of the population is employed but at working or middle class wages. On the surface you can say one is poorer then the other but is it really?

[HDR]

How about this.

You have a liberal state with big unions and wealthy elite yet a large portion of the population is on public assistance. Compare that to a more conservative state where the majority of the population is employed but at working or middle class wages. On the surface you can say one is poorer then the other but is it really?


Excellent point...

Plus, I know someone who works with statistics who says we always ask what you want us to prove... lol

[Arnulf]

1. Mississippi
2. Arkansas
3. Kentucky
4. Washington D.C. (not a state but they counted it)
5. New Mexico
6. West Virginia
7. Alabama
8. Louisiana
9. Texas
10. South Carolina
11. Tennessee

I could make the standard REDNECK joke, but seriously. I suspect the following: Texas and New Mexico are on the list because of their large MEXICAN populations and all the others are on the list because of their large BLACK populations. These groups tend to have a large level of abject poverty, period. Large enough groups of them will bring the overall state statistic down, if you don't already have a large money making sector to balance it off (like CA has with the high tech industry to counter the fact that we have tons of Hispanics).

Thoughts? What do YOU think makes these states the poorest in the nation?

For all the Kommiefornia bashers, need i say that California is nowhere near this list. Having the state government be broke is not the same as the residents/occupants being broke. All it means is that the state capitol can't raise taxes (by law thank GOD!!!) just to cover their over spending. But not having money to pay police/fire/sanitation/etc. sucks, but it doesn't mean all the citizens are living in poverty. It just means the tax base has fallen sharply off due to companies moving OUT.

All southern states...get to work you lazy hillbillies.:sleep:

[Penguin]

I was noticing that the majority of those are all southern states that have pretty much been some of the poorest since the civil war.

[Arnulf]

I was noticing that the majority of those are all southern states that have pretty much been some of the poorest since the civil war.

Yeah...everything went down hill when they made em give up their slaves.

[Kadmos]

I was noticing that the majority of those are all southern states that have pretty much been some of the poorest since the civil war.

Since before the civil war, and for the same reason, too much land in cotton.


El Laton Caliente, STL is Saint Louis, Missouri, my avatar is the Missouri flag

Median household income of about 30K

Per capita income about 17K

Housing cost 100K (50% below the national average for housing)

Very reasonable cost of living here.


Richard Simmons, rich elite, large unions, many on public assistance and still not as poor as the other states.

Kinda sounds like more opportunity to do well in life, plus if you fall you don't starve.

Makes it seem like the red states have rich elite, less middle class, and masses of working poor starving slowly.

As HDR implied, you can work this either way, but there is no doubt that some will come to the theory of race, and others will come to the theory of fat cat republicans keeping minorities poor to have a cheap labor pool.

As for me, I think it's geography personally, hard to scratch a living as a dirt farmer in West Virgina mountains, small cotton fields in Alabama, or trying to make something grow on shitty dry Texas land. None of these places have a good tourist draw like Florida, good ports and timber like Washington state, or the economic draw of say NYC.

Texas is probably the exception of course, decent tourism, natural resources, somewhat decent ports. Problem is it is offset by huge amounts of what is essentially wasteland, and a high population (particularly of unskilled workers).

[mriddick]

Oddly enough traveling around the north and I don't see what's so great about Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities in the rich north...

[Dr_Scholl]

Sucks for y'all. Virginia's the 6th wealthiest state according to the latest census report. Actually, we're the only southern state in the top 10.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/16/news/economy/Americas_wealthiest_states/index.htm

[Arnulf]

Oddly enough traveling around the north and I don't see what's so great about Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities in the rich north...

Detroit is surrounded by extremely wealthy areas.....like Bloomfield Hills.

[yankeedog]

So your numbers trying to show that black and hispanic people drag down the states TESTIFY!!!!!

If your white come to Southern Indiana, there are so many factory jobs they can't fill them all!!!

[Arnulf]

Sucks for y'all. Virginia's the 6th wealthiest state according to the latest census report. Actually, we're the only southern state in the top 10.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/16/news/economy/Americas_wealthiest_states/index.htm

Yeah...my dad was from Virginia....they always had plenty even during the depression....my Grandpa from Germany was a skilled worker....they had black servants and the whole shebang.....my moms folks from Kentucky some were dirt poor and some did ok.....my west Virginia relatives were pretty well off too...they owned the Eagle coal mine...and most of the businesses in a small town.

[Kadmos]

Oddly enough traveling around the north and I don't see what's so great about Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities in the rich north...

Culture and opportunity.

Obviously Detroit is a bad fit with the other two (and I assume thrown in on purpose), it didn't have enough economic diversity to survive the auto collapse.

But Philadelphia and Chicago are pretty rich vibrant cities still. Sure they have problems, but anyplace has some.

But you get more things to do and hugely varied opportunities compared to rural Alabama (or even rural Missouri).

You even get more opportunities and culture than someplace like Dallas.

It counts for a lot, with the variety in opportunity you can change careers more easily, with the added culture you have more chance to improve yourself and to have things to do with your free time.

One of the things I love about St. Louis is the culture here, we have a world class art museum (free), second best zoo in the country (free), great science center for the kids (free), history museum (free), lots of historic areas, parks, free festivals year round, free music and plays in some of the parks during warm seasons...it's a lot of perks.

[Arnulf]

Culture and opportunity.

Obviously Detroit is a bad fit with the other two (and I assume thrown in on purpose), it didn't have enough economic diversity to survive the auto collapse.

But Philadelphia and Chicago are pretty rich vibrant cities still. Sure they have problems, but anyplace has some.

But you get more things to do and hugely varied opportunities compared to rural Alabama (or even rural Missouri).

You even get more opportunities and culture than someplace like Dallas.

It counts for a lot, with the variety in opportunity you can change careers more easily, with the added culture you have more chance to improve yourself and to have things to do with your free time.

One of the things I love about St. Louis is the culture here, we have a world class art museum (free), second best zoo in the country (free), great science center for the kids (free), history museum (free), lots of historic areas, parks, free festivals year round, free music and plays in some of the parks during warm seasons...it's a lot of perks.

No....the money just moved outside of Detroit.....to places like Bloomfield Hills.....which is a huge area that has wealthy homes that goes on for miles....its one of the most wealthy areas in the country.

[tank_monkey]

Yeah...everything went down hill when they made em give up their slaves.

Fucker! You actually wrote something that made me fall on the floor laughing!!!!!!!! :laughingtohard: :lmao3:

[Arnulf]

Fucker! You actually wrote something that made me fall on the floor laughing!!!!!!!! :laughingtohard: :lmao3:

Good....now you better invite me to one of those hollywood parties with all the hot chicks.:coffee:

[Ronwicp]

Yeah...everything went down hill when they made em give up their slaves.

It fuckin hot outside.

[El Laton Caliente]

El Laton Caliente, STL is Saint Louis, Missouri, my avatar is the Missouri flag

Median household income of about 30K

Per capita income about 17K

Housing cost 100K (50% below the national average for housing)

Very reasonable cost of living here.

... or trying to make something grow on shitty dry Texas land. None of these places have a good tourist draw like Florida, good ports and timber like Washington state, or the economic draw of say NYC.

Texas is probably the exception of course, decent tourism, natural resources, somewhat decent ports. Problem is it is offset by huge amounts of what is essentially wasteland, and a high population (particularly of unskilled workers).

Sorry I alway thought you were west coast...

You have even still proved my point about not balancing for cost of living. My "poor" county makes the same as your area and pays half for housing.....

Texas has the third and sixth largest ports in the nation...

I STILL say if cost of living is factored in this whole thing is skewed horribly.

[mriddick]

I'd say only idiots worry about who's rich and poor, happiness is all that matters in the end :)

[PROBASCO]

new feature of the us debt clock in the upper left hand corner, pick a state to see how bad the state government is blowing the peoples money.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[Arnulf]

Sorry I alway thought you were west coast...

You have even still proved my point about not balancing for cost of living. My "poor" county makes the same as your area and pays half for housing.....

Texas has the third and sixth largest ports in the nation...

I STILL say if cost of living is factored in this whole thing is skewed horribly.

My oldest friend lives in Texas...he is a truck driver....he drives over to the Mississippi river and these big barges loaded with coffee beans...he pulls up and they fill his tanker up and he drives back to Texas to a big processing plant and empties the tank...I guess all the brands are made there...they just put on different labels.....my point is that he does not go to a port in Texas....he was driving that hi-way after hurricane katrina....he said it was creepy.

[Kadmos]

Sorry I alway thought you were west coast...

You have even still proved my point about not balancing for cost of living. My "poor" county makes the same as your area and pays half for housing.....

Texas has the third and sixth largest ports in the nation...

I STILL say if cost of living is factored in this whole thing is skewed horribly.

Nope, I'm Midwestern and it suits me well.

I don't disagree, it's probably all kinds of skewed, at best these kinds of numbers give you just the barest general sense of an areas wealth.

Just too many variables, for instance we've got reasonably long cold winters here, need some decent floorspace to live inside. In Florida, you can put your dining room table outside year around...hell all you need floorspace for is a place to put a bed, the fridge, and a crapper! I figure a lot of Texas is like that as well...why have a big house if you have nice weather year round and can be outside?

Can't even build a basement in most of Florida, here it can rather useful living space, or good storage for the massive amounts of seasonal clothing.

Oranges cost more here, but corn is cheap.

Different lifestyles, different values placed on things.

Just so you know..on the 100K houses it seems to me it works out something like this

30% of houses are 100K
30% are 200K
30% are 50K

Probably the same as most places, but for better or worse (lets face it worse) I could buy a house here for under 20K (four walls, a roof, electrical & plumbing..real fancy) but I wouldn't want to walk outside in those neighborhoods without a flak jacket and a security squad...lol