Top 10 POOREST STATES in America for 2021

[Music] do you know what sucks being poor and do you know what sucks even more not having any control over whether or not you go broke now i'm sure we can all agree that 2020 was an awful year for most as over two-thirds of all americans now live paycheck to paycheck if you're one of them you'll definitely want to avoid the states on this list as they have extremely low wages extremely high poverty rates and basically no economic opportunity and even if you aren't poorer you'll still probably want to avoid them anyways because poverty and high crime rates usually have a big correlation speaking of which if you want me to make a video on the top 10 most dangerous states let's hit 5 000 likes but while corrupt policies have had an impact on the rich getting richer and the poor staying poor with 10.5 percent of the us now living in poverty despite us having the largest economy in the history of the modern world many of these states are also at fault for their own misfortunes due to their refusal to adapt to the changing times as the economy increasingly caters toward innovation tech and new energy but whatever the case these are the top 10 poorest states in america for 2021 [Music] number 10 nessie tennessee tennessee might be taking its nickname a bit too seriously because the volunteers stayed practically as people working for free with the second highest number of minimum wage workers in the country all working for just 7.25 an hour so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the median household income is just 56 000 and that the disparity of wealth only increases as the cost of living continues to rise due to so many new people moving here who are able to work better out-of-state jobs online now don't get me wrong the state's economy is also growing especially around the nashville area where there's a diversified job market and a median household income over 70 grand but even in nashville you'll still see plenty of homeless roaming the streets and outside of nashville most of tennessee suffers from severe poverty and crime memphis for instance has a poverty rate over 25 a crime rate 223 above the national average and a violent crime rate that's five times the national average and tennessee as a whole's violent crime rate is 57 above the national average but can you blame them 13.8 percent of tennessee's 6.9 million residents live below the poverty line but hey at least there's no state income tax number 9 south carolina south carolina is the sixth fastest growing state with the population increasing by nearly 1.3 percent each year which means i guess people just didn't get the memo that this isn't a great place to live sure it's by no means the worst state in the country but the schools suck as very little emphasis is put on education here so the economy is struggling now the one exception would be the charleston area which is actually a pretty great place to live with decent economic opportunity and a surprisingly high median household income of seventy thousand dollars but the rest of the state has very little industry which has resulted in the eleventh lowest median household income of only fifty six thousand two hundred dollars statewide also since so many people are moving here the cost of housing is going up way faster than most local jobs can accommodate the median home value actually increased by 8 over the past year to 207 000 which combined with the low wages has led to a 13.9 poverty rate as such many south carolinans have resorted to crime with the overall crime rate being 39 above the national average number eight oklahoma while the many farms throughout the sooner state offers some jobs in agriculture the majority of decent paying jobs in oklahoma are in gas oil and coal which is why the median household income of 54 000 is fairly high compared to the cost of living with a median home value of just 141 000 but these non-renewable energy jobs aren't going to be around forever so it's a good thing that the state and local governments are trying to diversify the economy with many new jobs in telecommunications food processing transportation aviation and a growing startup tech sector in okc in tulsa then again these efforts to improve the economy might not work out since the state doesn't exactly value education with the chronically underfunded public schools being the fifth worst of any state and speaking of underfunded 15.1 percent of oklahomans are currently living below the poverty line which probably has something to do with oklahoma also having by far the highest number of adult incarcerations in the u.s number seven alabama wait what i thought alabama was the worst state how's it only number seven on this list well yeah the cotton state was once our worst state to live in america and one that definitely would have made the top three poorest states just a few years ago but it's actually improved a lot in recent years mainly due to huntsville which is actually one of the best cities to live in the south with tons of good jobs and a median household income over 67 grand but huntsville aside most of alabama is still very poor with even less opportunity birmingham the largest metropolitan area in the state for example has an extremely high poverty rate of 25.9 percent and a violent crime rate that's 404 percent above the national average and most of rural alabama is even worse there are actual homes here that don't have any access to proper sewage running water or electricity and many counties have poverty rates over 30 percent overall the median household income is just 51 700 and while you might think so what if the median income is lower alabama's probably dirt cheap i don't mind making less if i can spend less just remember there are much cheaper states in this country where you can make much more money because sure the median home value is just a hundred fifty nine thousand dollars but fifteen point six percent of alabamians still live in poverty number six kentucky the overall quality of life in kentucky continues to deteriorate every year and the state government seems to have no plans for improvement sure there are some good jobs in the louisville and lexington areas but even in those cities the wages are a lot lower than they would be for comparable work in other states which explains why the statewide median household income of just 52 000 is so much lower than the national average of 65 000 now to be fair the cost of living is also below the national average with a median home value around 161 grand but that number is going up fast especially in the cities and if you're thinking of living in a more affordable part of the state which do exist you might want to reconsider cause most of rural kentucky looks like this and features extreme poverty and rampant meth addiction due to the decline of the agriculture and coal mining industries that much of the state once heavily relied on 16 of kentuckians now live below the poverty line and the bluegrass state actually has the highest percentage of minimum wage workers in the nation and yes that minimum wage is the bare minimum of just 7.25 an hour number five arkansas well would you look at that there's finally a state on our list with a minimum wage higher than seven dollars and 25 cents but even an 11 minimum wage and low unemployment rate of just 4.9 percent can't save the land of opportunity from having literally no economic opportunity well besides for the fayetteville area where the median household income is 62 000 thanks to all the fortune 500 companies headquartered there but the state-wide median household income of 48 900 is actually the third lowest in the nation it's not really arkansan's faults though most of the economy is based around agriculture forestry and trucking and transportation so there just aren't many good paying jobs and since education isn't a top priority here with the public schooling system being ranked 10th worst in the nation innovation and new industry aren't coming anytime soon now thankfully not as many people are living in poverty as the wages would suggest since arkansas is relatively affordable with the median home costing around 142 grand but boy oh boy are a whole lot of people still struggling to make ends meet with the poverty rate in many counties skying upwards of 35 and the statewide poverty rate is 16.1 as a result arkansas is one of the five most dangerous states in the nation with a violent crime rate that's 54 above the national average number four west virginia are you starting to see a trend low quality public schools means mostly unskilled labor which means many residents are only gonna get poorer as more blue-collar jobs are being automated away or going extinct altogether nowhere is that more evident than in the coal mining industry of west virginia what once provided a decent living for families now just serves as a sad testament to the american industrialism that has decimated so much of this state from the once beautiful mountaintops to the health of the residents who threw away years of their life to mine them and since west virginia still refuses to diversify its economy despite our country moving on to renewable sources of energy so many decent hardworking folks now have absolutely no opportunity of making a living the mountain state has the second lowest median household income at just 48 800 and despite west virginia also offering the lowest cost of housing in the nation with the median home costing just 113 grand 16.3 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line it's no wonder west virginia is the fastest shrinking state with the population declining by two-thirds of a percent each year those who can afford to flee the state while those who can't or who are just too stubborn to see that the economy isn't getting better anytime soon can only watch as their towns fall into more and more ruin number three new mexico the land of enchantment may be beautiful the looks sure aren't everything because the state has been struggling for a long time while there are many high-paying science research and federal government jobs that cause the median household income of 51 900 to fall a little higher than most of the states on this list the 8.6 unemployment rate and 17.5 poverty rate illustrate new mexico's huge disparity of wealth maybe things wouldn't be so bad if new mexico didn't also have by far the worst public school system with the highest high school dropout rate but for now it seems many residents would rather break the law than educate themselves since new mexico's crime rate is 58 higher than the national average and its violent crime rate is 120 percent higher now wages did actually grow by eight percent over the past year as many new green energy initiatives have come here in order to capitalize off the abundance of sun and wind that the state receives but since the cost of living is also a lot higher than all the other states that suck this bad with a median home value of nearly 230 000 they're gonna need to grow a lot more than that number two louisiana louisiana is undoubtedly the most corrupt state in the nation with the second highest rate of incarcerated adults and as such the state and local governments practically robbed the poor of what little they have via high income and local sales taxes before turning right around and giving it to their buddies in the private sector is corporate tax subsidies instead of actually using the tax money to improve the terrible infrastructure or public schooling system which sure could use some money as it's the third worst in the country and due to the lack of education and resources the economy here just isn't diversified sure there are some high-paying jobs in oil and gas as louisiana is home to the most oil refineries per capita in the u.s but those jobs aren't gonna last forever and most other louisianans are stuck working long hours for low wages in the new orleans tourism industry where the median household income is just 55 000 despite an expensive median home value of 240 grand but hey at least they have jobs the rest of the state has literally no economic opportunity which has resulted in the fifth lowest median household income of just fifty one thousand seventy dollars and the highest pay gap between men and women at thirty one point one percent all things considered it should come as no surprise that 18.8 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and that the crime rate is nearly 50 percent above the national average now before we get to number one make sure you leave a like and subscribe and i also wanted to give a quick honorable mention to a place that isn't technically a state but if it were to become the 51st state would definitely be the poorest in the country that's right puerto rico despite the territory consisting of 143 beautiful islands inlets and adults the overall median household income here is just 20 400 and the median home value isn't even that cheap at around 140 grand as a result 43.5 percent of the population lives in poverty surprisingly however puerto rico is actually super safe despite so many people struggling with a crime rate 53 below the national average but without further ado number one mississippi was this one really a surprise our worst state to live in for 2021 just so happens to also be the poorest state in the country it turns out the hospitality state isn't too hospitable despite the median home value being just 134 grand because it ranks pretty much dead last in every economical category that matters from the lowest median household income of just forty five thousand seven hundred dollars to the highest poverty rate at nineteen point five percent the public schools are also among the worst in the us and even if they were good it wouldn't do much good since the economy is also the worst in the nation many of the counties here are actually borderline third world with poverty rates over 40 percent but even without all these numbers if you've ever been to mississippi you could probably tell just from looking around that it's by far the poorest state in america

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Id: QjIUARlw3eg

Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 18 2021