Top 10 States With Extreme Poverty; Doubling The GDP Won’t Even Help

There is poverty, and then there is extreme poverty. People talk about the “New Normal”, where the economy is growing at a lower rate, the stock market is barely changing, etc. Even if we assume that the US GDP per capita grows at a respectable 2% per year, it would take more than 35 years to double the incomes of US households. Even in this scenario, where the incomes of every single person in this country doubles, there will still be widespread poverty in all corners of this country.

Insider Monkey, your source for free insider trading data, gathered the 2009 Census Bureau data and calculated the extreme poverty rates. Instead of the official national poverty line, we used half of it (about $5400). So even if the incomes of these extremely poor households double, the households would still be classified as poor. Currently, 19 million Americans live in extreme poverty. Previously, we published the list of the 10 Poorest States and several readers commented that the results were affected by the presence of large poor minority populations and we should adjust our rankings for race. So, we prepared the list of States with the highest White (excluding Hispanics and Latinos) Poverty as well.  

Here are the 10 states with extreme poverty levels:

10. Tennessee, Extreme Poverty Rate=7.42%                                 456 thousand people are in extreme poverty

9. New Mexico, Extreme Poverty Rate=7.47%                               147 thousand people are in extreme poverty

8. Alabama, Extreme Poverty Rate=7.49%                                      344 thousand people are in extreme poverty

7. Arizona, Extreme Poverty Rate=7.56%                                        491 thousand people are in extreme poverty

6. West Virginia, Extreme Poverty Rate=7.60%                             135 thousand people are in extreme poverty

5. Arkansas, Extreme Poverty Rate=7.68%                                      216 thousand people are in extreme poverty

4. South Carolina, Extreme Poverty Rate=7.71%                           341 thousand people are in extreme poverty

3. Kentucky, Extreme Poverty Rate=7.97%                                        334 thousand people are in extreme poverty

2. Mississippi, Extreme Poverty Rate=9.35%                                   266 thousand people are in extreme poverty

1. District of Columbia*, Extreme Poverty Rate=10. 7%                62 thousand people are in extreme poverty

Wyoming has the lowest extreme poverty rate in America, followed by New Hampshire and Alaska. 

* D.C. is not a state but considering that it is more crowded than Wyoming, we can statistically consider it as a state.