The overall picture of poverty among states is a familiar one: Some states, such as Mississippi, have long claimed the highest poverty rates according to the federal income standard. Others, such as Hawaii, Maryland and Massachusetts, often are at the opposite end, with poverty rates less than half those in more impoverished states.
But a Stateline analysis of new state-by-state poverty data released by U.S. Census Bureau last week shows that some states with the lowest overall poverty rates in 2013 also had some of the highest percentages of low-income residents living in deep poverty — defined as earning less than half of the federal poverty level, or about $12,000 per year for a family of four.
The persistence of deep poverty in states that have been relatively successful in reducing their overall poverty rates is a vexing problem, one that might expose serious shortcomings in the country’s safety net, according to economists and anti-poverty advocates.
[For more of this story, written by Jake Grovum, go to http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/re...ures-deeper-despair?]
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