US Counties With the Lowest Returns Claiming the Earned Income Credit
3,143 US counties ranked by returns claiming the earned income credit, from lowest to highest. First are Camas County, ID (0%), Clark County, ID (0%) and Wallace County, KS (0%). The middle one of the 3,143 has 15.4%.
What this measures
The percentage of tax returns claiming the earned income tax credit, which goes to working households with low incomes. It is a count from tax records of the working poor, not a survey estimate. Source: IRS Statistics of Income.
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 | 7.91% |
| 2 | Massachusetts | 9.56% |
| 3 | Washington | 9.82% |
| 4 | Minnesota | 9.98% |
| 5 | Vermont | 10.1% |
| 6 | Colorado | 10.2% |
| 7 | North Dakota | 10.5% |
| 8 | Wisconsin | 10.6% |
| 9 | Utah | 10.9% |
| 10 | Connecticut | 11.1% |
| 11 | Oregon | 11.2% |
| 12 | Wyoming | 11.3% |
| 13 | Alaska | 11.3% |
| 14 | Maine | 11.3% |
| 15 | Montana | 11.7% |
| 16 | South Dakota | 11.8% |
| 17 | New Jersey | 12% |
| 18 | Iowa | 12% |
| 19 | Nebraska | 12% |
| 20 | Hawaii | 12.1% |
| 21 | Rhode Island | 12.2% |
| 22 | Maryland | 12.3% |
| 23 | District of Columbia | 12.6% |
| 24 | Idaho | 12.6% |
| 25 | Virginia | 12.9% |
| 26 | Kansas | 12.9% |
| 27 | Pennsylvania | 13% |
| 28 | Illinois | 13.5% |
| 29 | Delaware | 13.7% |
| 30 | California | 13.8% |
| 31 | Michigan | 14.3% |
| 32 | Ohio | 14.4% |
| 33 | Indiana | 14.7% |
| 34 | Missouri | 14.8% |
| 35 | New York | 15.1% |
| 36 | Arizona | 15.3% |
| 37 | Nevada | 15.8% |
| 38 | West Virginia | 16.3% |
| 39 | North Carolina | 16.7% |
| 40 | Tennessee | 17% |
| 41 | South Carolina | 17.7% |
| 42 | Kentucky | 18% |
| 43 | New Mexico | 18.5% |
| 44 | Oklahoma | 18.8% |
| 45 | Florida | 19.1% |
| 46 | Texas | 19.4% |
| 47 | Alabama | 20.3% |
| 48 | Arkansas | 20.5% |
| 49 | Georgia | 20.6% |
| 50 | Louisiana | 24% |
| 51 | Mississippi | 26.7% |
More on returns claiming the earned income credit
- US Counties With the Highest Returns Claiming the Earned Income Credit
- Returns claiming the earned income credit 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.