Is West Virginia poverty 5% higher than U.S. as a whole?
“To confirm the newspaper’s data, we turned to the original figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. The numbers check out: The U.S poverty rate was 13.4 percent, but the West Virginia poverty rate was 19.1. The difference: 5.7 percentage points. To be precise, however, Fershee should have said that the poverty rate in West Virginia is more than 5 percentage points higher than the United States as a whole — not 5 percent higher. If it were 5 percent higher, the poverty rate in West Virginia would be about 14.1 percent, not 19.1 percent.”