Housing Assistance Council

Poverty in the United States Map

Download a PDF of the "Poverty in the United States" map (HAC recommends using Adobe Reader X or higher for optimal printing)

Taking Stock: Rural People, Poverty and Housing in the 21st Century

Order Full-Sized Copies

Order full-size, 24” X 36” poster prints of "Poverty in the United States" at a cost of $5.00 each. The maps are shipped folded to 6" X 9" size.

Order copies by clicking on the “Buy Now” button to pay by credit card. To pay by check, please mail this order form along with check payment to:

Housing Assistance Council
Attn: Poverty Map Order
1025 Vermont Ave NW, Ste 606
Washington, DC 20005

Once confirmation of your payment has been received, HAC will ship your order.

The increasing prevalence of poverty in the United States is an inexcusable shame on this great nation. More Americans are living in poverty today than at any other time since the Census Bureau began measuring its occurrence. The issue of poverty has many complexities, but it is much more than an abstract condition for the over 40 million Americans who face daily struggles with food security, access to health care, and lack of basic shelter.

Forty years ago the Housing Assistance Council (HAC) was created to address poverty and housing inadequacies in rural America. In 1984, HAC published Taking Stock, one of the first comprehensive assessments of rural poverty and housing conditions in the United States. A key component of that seminal report was HAC’s national poverty map detailing poverty rates for every U.S. county in 1980. As a companion to 2012 edition of Taking Stock: Rual People, Poverty, and Housing in the 21st Century, HAC presents our newly updated poverty map, entitled “Poverty in the United States.” The map shows county-level poverty data from 2010 Census counts.

Download HAC's Rural
Research Note: Poverty
in Rural America.

While some gains have been made in reducing poverty over the past several decades, poverty rates are still shockingly high for certain populations in rural America, namely minorities and children. HAC’s research also illustrates the continued persistence of high poverty within several predominantly rural regions and populations such as Central Appalachia, the Lower Mississippi Delta, the southern Black Belt, the Colonias region along the U.S.-Mexico border, Native American lands, and migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Often forgotten or hidden from mainstream America, these areas and
populations had poverty rates of 20 percent or higher in 1990, 2000, and 2010.

HAC’s poverty map presents the stark reality that too many Americans have been left behind or shut out of our nation’s economic promise and prosperity.

In the coming months, HAC will present additional research products highlighting social, economic, and housing characteristics of rural Americans.