U.S. Poverty Rate By City In 2021

In a recent article we looked at the poverty rates across all 50 U.S. states. Now, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 and 2014 American Community Survey, Five-Year Estimates, we’ve analyzed all major American cities (those with populations of at least 100,000) in terms of the percentage of their populations living below the poverty line.

U.S. Poverty Rate by City

The good news is that for most American cities, the percentage of the population living below the poverty line has declined over the last five years. The bad news is that the poverty rate in many major American cities is staggeringly high. For example, the average percentage of people living below the poverty line in 50 of the largest U.S. cities is 17.4%, which means only slightly less than one in five people live below the poverty line.

When looking at all U.S. cities with at least 100,000 people, the cities with the lowest poverty rates tend to have populations between 100,000 and 250,000. San Jose, California, is the only city with more than a million residents that has a poverty rate below 10% (8.7% in 2019, down from 11.8% in 2014). Virginia Beach, with a population of close to 440,000, is another good exception, with only 7.3% of its population living below the poverty line, down from 8.3% five years ago.

U.S. Cities with the Lowest Poverty Rates

Again, looking at American cities with populations of at least 100,000, the cities with the lowest poverty rates tend to less than 250,000 people living there. Here are the 20 cities with the lowest percentage of people living below the poverty line:

U.S. Cities with the Highest Poverty Rates

Now we’ll look at the flipside: Major U.S. cities with the highest rates of poverty. One of the positive trends with these cities is that most of them have experienced solid drops in the share of their populations living below the poverty line over the last five years. Looking at 20 cities with populations of at least 100,000 and the highest rates of poverty, only one city — New Haven, Connecticut — has seen its share of people living below the poverty line rise from 2014 to 2019, and even that is a mere 0.1%. Yet, despite the widespread decline in poverty rates, the percentage of the population living below the poverty line is unnerving in these cities, from a high of 35% in Detroit to a low of 26.2% in Waco, Texas. Here’s the 20 largest U.S. cities with the highest poverty rates:

All Major U.S. Cities by Poverty Rate

Below you’ll find a table of all U.S. cities with populations of at least 100,000 and their respective poverty rates for 2019 and 2014, as well as the five-year change in their population living below the poverty line.