skeldon_man posted:asj posted:Mississippi is the nation’s poorest state while Maryland ranks as its richest, according to newly released information from the US Census Bureau.
In addition to Mississippi, the three poorest states include West Virginia and Arkansas. Relatively low levels of education could be a factor in the poverty and lower incomes in all three states.
At the other end of the spectrum are Maryland, New Jersey and Alaska, which rank as the country’s richest states. The median income in Mississippi was $39,680 compared to $73,971 in Maryland.
File photo of a home in West Virginia by Flickr user Richard Elzey via Creative Commons license.
Three states — Washington, North Dakota, and Connecticut — reported income increases of more than $2,000 in 2014. Kentucky, the fifth poorest poor state, experienced a significant decline in income; the typical household earned $1,139 less in 2014 than in 2013. Income levels were essentially the same in 2013 and 2014 in 33 states.
Overall, the United States added 3.2 million new jobs in 2014, up from the 2.3 million jobs that were added in 2013. At the end of 2014, there were 139 million jobs in the U.S., more than at the start of 2008, the peak before the recession.
But not all U.S. states are sharing in this prosperity; the poverty rate has actually increased in 12 states. The nation’s overall poverty rate was 14.8 percent, which means 46.7 million people were living in poverty in 2014.
The U.S. Census Bureau said these numbers presented no “statistically significant” change from the previous year. It’s the fourth year in a row that poverty rates were not statistically different from the previous year.
The real median income for family households was $68,426, which was also not statistically different from 2013. However, when compared to 2007 — the year before the U.S. fell into its most recent recession — the real median household income is actually 6.5 percent lower.
There is too much inbreeding in WV. They are all related to each other. No wonder they cannot build a proper home. It's the most redneck state in the union.
you are talking sheer crap. The myth of rednecks are like all myths of little substance. My wifes father was from West Virginia. We had a round house in the mountain that we used to get away to in the week end and those were my best memories in this country. I like the mountains and the vineyards of west virginia. We still take weekend drives there in the summer. I also bike in the mountains a lot. The people are very friendly ...unexpectedly so. I forgot and expensive set of Wiley X glasses (tactical with multiple lenses, shades etc among other biking gear in a back pack in a pizza shop once and did not go back for another month and the manager remembered me and returned them