US Counties With the Lowest Poverty Rate (model-based)
3,143 US counties ranked by poverty rate (model-based), from lowest to highest. First are Lincoln County, SD (3.3%), Douglas County, CO (3.7%) and Los Alamos County, NM (3.8%). The middle one of the 3,143 has 13.6%.
What this measures
The percentage of people in poverty, as an estimate from a statistical model, not a direct count. The Census Bureau combines survey answers with tax and food-assistance records, to get figures that small counties' survey answers cannot give on their own. Source: Census SAIPE.
For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.
The 100 lowest counties
Every state, lowest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Hampshire | 7.3% |
| 2 | Utah | 9% |
| 3 | Minnesota | 9.2% |
| 4 | Colorado | 9.4% |
| 5 | Maryland | 9.7% |
| 6 | New Jersey | 9.7% |
| 7 | Vermont | 9.9% |
| 8 | North Dakota | 10% |
| 9 | Idaho | 10.1% |
| 10 | Hawaii | 10.2% |
| 11 | Nebraska | 10.2% |
| 12 | Virginia | 10.2% |
| 13 | Connecticut | 10.2% |
| 14 | Washington | 10.3% |
| 15 | Wyoming | 10.4% |
| 16 | Maine | 10.5% |
| 17 | Massachusetts | 10.5% |
| 18 | Alaska | 10.5% |
| 19 | Wisconsin | 10.6% |
| 20 | Delaware | 10.8% |
| 21 | Iowa | 11.1% |
| 22 | Kansas | 11.2% |
| 23 | Rhode Island | 11.4% |
| 24 | South Dakota | 11.4% |
| 25 | Illinois | 11.6% |
| 26 | Montana | 11.8% |
| 27 | Pennsylvania | 11.9% |
| 28 | Missouri | 12% |
| 29 | California | 12% |
| 30 | Oregon | 12.1% |
| 31 | Indiana | 12.2% |
| 32 | Nevada | 12.2% |
| 33 | Florida | 12.4% |
| 34 | Arizona | 12.6% |
| 35 | North Carolina | 12.8% |
| 36 | Ohio | 13.2% |
| 37 | Michigan | 13.5% |
| 38 | Georgia | 13.7% |
| 39 | Texas | 13.7% |
| 40 | Tennessee | 13.8% |
| 41 | South Carolina | 13.9% |
| 42 | New York | 14.1% |
| 43 | District of Columbia | 15.2% |
| 44 | Arkansas | 15.4% |
| 45 | Alabama | 15.7% |
| 46 | Oklahoma | 15.8% |
| 47 | Kentucky | 16.1% |
| 48 | West Virginia | 16.4% |
| 49 | New Mexico | 16.9% |
| 50 | Mississippi | 18.3% |
| 51 | Louisiana | 18.9% |
More on poverty rate (model-based)
- US Counties With the Highest Poverty Rate (model-based)
- Poverty rate (model-based) by US county: map by year and what it goes with
A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.