ZIP Codes With the Highest Poverty Rates in the Nation
“The COVID-19 pandemic sent the U.S. unemployment rate to 14.8% in April 2020, its highest level since the Great Depression. Normally, such an economic shock would result in a spike in the national poverty rate. However, what would have likely been a steep increase has likely been mitigated by the three rounds of federal stimulus payments.
As of 2019, the most recent year with an official poverty rate released by the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 13.4% of the U.S. population lived below the poverty line.
Of course, the poverty rate varies considerably across the country, and even before the COVID-19 unemployment crisis, there were parts of the country where poverty was already widespread — where half of the population or more lived on poverty-level income.”