South Still Lags the Nation

Data released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau show that the South continues to have the highest poverty rate of any region in the country. In 2004, 14.1 percent of the people in the census South -- some 443,000 individuals -- had incomes below the federal poverty level. At the same time, the Census Bureau found that the South's poverty rate was unchanged between 2003 and 2004.

In terms of individual states, Arkansas was the only state from the Old Confederacy to experience a statistically significant change in its poverty rate. Arkansas' poverty rate dropped from 18.8 percent ot 16.4 percent. Poverty rates in the eleven Confederate states ranged from a high of 17.3 percent in Mississippi to a low of 9.7 percent in Virginia.

The new census data revealed a similar pattern for median household income. Median household income in the census South totaled $40,773 in 2004 -- the lowest of any U.S. region. Median household incomes held steady in every former Confederate state but Georgia, where it declined by 4.7 percent. Mississippi's median household income of $34,269 was the region's lowest, while Virginia's median income of $53,847 was the South's highest.