Methodology

To identify the metropolitan areas hit hardest by extreme poverty, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data on poverty rates at the tract level. We listed for each state the metro area where the largest percentage of poor residents live in concentrated poverty. The concentrated poverty rate is the share of a metropolitan area’s poor population that lives in a census tract that has a poverty rate of 40% or higher. We also reviewed other data from the ACS, including educational attainment rates and unemployment rates for both groups in concentrated poverty and those not in concentrated poverty.