America's Poor: Where Poverty Is Rising In America (INFOGRAPHIC)

Mint, the personal finance site, put together this chart of regional poverty in America based on statistics recently released by the Census Bureau. In 2009, poverty among Americans reached its highest level in 51 years. The states hardest hit include Louisiana, Mississippi and District of Columbia. States with the lowest poverty statistics include, Wyoming, Hawaii, New Jersey and Minnesota.

Roll over each state to see its poverty rate. Visit Mint Life for more information:

Budget Planner - Mint.com

Comments

[Josey Wales1]

10:29 AM on 12/05/2010

Why is this map different today then it was on 10-25-10, when I took a screen-grab. My screen-grab is pretty much like what shows up in the static small picture to left and below the interactive graphic? Did someone tweek the data? Why, from original publication at mint.com and as shown on 10-25-10, would the folks at mint.com change the data to form the chart? Can they be counted on to now reliability display proper data?

[HowardScottPearlman]

01:31 PM on 10/24/2010

The Red Republican States Almost have a Monopoly on the Poorest States In America !

Compassionate Conservatism Fails Again !

[Bowlan]

07:36 PM on 10/23/2010

our government has been hijacked by wall street and all they care about is big business.
they wont rest until the middle class is gone completely.

[Cthulhu On Call]

11:27 PM on 10/22/2010

I thought that the poverty level was more like $20,000 (as opposed to $10,000), not sure where I heard that though. I have a hard time accepting that someone making $15,000 is above the poverty level.

[gotama420]

05:43 PM on 10/22/2010

nice map

[Bellimbusto]

04:01 PM on 10/22/2010

Economy 101

RECESSION is when your neighbor loses his job.

DEPRESSION is when you lose your job.

RECOVERY is when Obama loses his job.

[laughriot]

03:34 PM on 10/22/2010

Shouldn't this infographic just be labeled "Where Laziness Is Rising In America" ? Only lazy people are poor, according to my local Tea Party.

[the truth about]

10:16 AM on 10/22/2010

What defines poverty? Its suspiciously missing from any analysis. Is it that you only have 2 tax subsidized flat screen tv's?

[oilfield]

01:07 PM on 10/22/2010

something like that....it doesnt vary from region to region, so regions that 15k will let you rent and live on your own where obviously in new york city you would be homeless....no difference.

[Vickie803]

07:54 AM on 10/22/2010

The best thing that could happen for the poor of the US is to send Mexico's poor home. American tax dollars are flowing into the pockets of Mexican citizens.

[Am-Expat]

04:55 AM on 10/22/2010

One of the key problems is lack of travel. Americans know almost know nothing about the world, other than what media like Fox tells them. How could they, only 18% even have a passport.
What they would find of they really explored other countries and cultures is that some of the problems we face have been tackled and solved in hundreds of effective ways. Seeing how the ripple effect of good public transportation and rail for example causes all manner of quality of life issues to improve as a byproduct. They might see what the countries that have far higher quality of life have in common. One of those common traits is a society priority for education. In the US, education is outsourced to schools and budgets are cut when schools can't counter the massive anti-education bias for the remaining 18hours of the day. I've never seen a society which redicules intelligence and careful deliberation as "elitist" or "out of touch" as in the US, where it seems that ignorance is worn as a badge of honor. Sure, there are lots of college degrees in job focused fields but lawyers, accountants, and engineers who have highly specialized educations but know no languages, literature, science, history, art, philosophy are even more dangerous than uneducated, they do not see how their actions fit in the overall culture's cosmology. Even "smart" people are susceptible to the propaganda that is driving public policy debates, is they are ignorant of the wider picture.

[Vickie803]

07:56 AM on 10/22/2010

This has got to be one of the most naive comments that could possibly be made on the situation. This is right up there with Mariah Carey saying she would like to be thin like starving people in the world, except for all the flies and stuff.

[oilfield]

01:08 PM on 10/22/2010

i do travel overseas and if you think our poor are poor, then you dont travel enough.

[scfreedataentry]

02:58 AM on 10/22/2010

This shows how arduous is it to sustain a big nation rather than small ones like in Europe.
Killer tips:
1.Lookout for trade deficit;Importing way much and paralyzing domestic manufacturing activities.
But sadly everyone want cheap hq whilst going for same in America with higher price tag.
2.Stop off shoring much;Stop now to be hero delivering incessant Ed Vs that ruin local uneducated people.
3.Cutting military costs to use leaked money in country.
China fosters its GDP and average PCI low!! ;though happy but becoming insane in pricetags and creating trade deficit.Companies can't beat low price-tags!!
free genuine data entry(http://freegenuinedataentry.blogspot.com)

[Rob Bradshaw]

11:38 PM on 10/21/2010

I see a lot of posts that make me think that many people still don't get it. Yes...the poor have been victimized by the rich of every society. That is how people get rich. To say that the rich became rich through dishonest or immoral means, and thinking saying so provides any incite, is naive. The question is....what do we do about it? What are you doing in your community to make things better? When was the last time you volunteered, tutored, mentored?
America has stories that we know, familiar narratives. One of them is the inter-city failure. The poor are criminals, lazy, dishonest people who are not worthy of our assistance or even our pity.
Believing this makes it easy to ignore our inner-city blight, our schools that continually fail to arm our children with the skills needed to compete in a rapidly shrinking world, and a health system that ranks 37th in the world according to the New England Journal of Medicine. (http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=2610).
So change the narrative! Create better people in your community, show the youth that a better life is possible. Help whenever and wherever you can.

[Vickie803]

07:58 AM on 10/22/2010

Insight vs. incite; look them up in a dictionary.

[oilfield]

11:11 PM on 10/21/2010

its amazing...i know in south la unemployment is still 7-8% and it says we have 15-20% poverty.... i am sure it was close to that when we were at 2% unemployment a few years ago.

[AZreb]

09:22 PM on 10/21/2010

Nevada with no areas over 20%? Really?

[bola47]

06:56 PM on 10/21/2010

since it was announced that there will be no cost of living adjustment for social security for the second year in a row, the price of gasoline has spiked up 10 cents here in southwest florida. this is a conspiracy between big business and the politicians who take their cash.