Incomes in South lag nation

No surprise here, but U.S. Census data released yesterday shows that Southerners have some of the lowest median incomes in the nation.

According to the Associated Press, "Mississippi had the lowest median income, at $32,397. West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana and Montana rounded out the bottom five. The median household income for the nation was $43,318."

The article also noted that while the populations of Southern and Western states have been growing faster than those in the Northeast and Midwest, the relative income positions of the regions have not changed much during the last decade.

Furthermore:

Most of the wealthiest counties were suburban, and nearly all the poorest ones were rural.

"This is a reflection of a poverty problem in non-metro areas," said Dean Jolliffe, an economist at the Department of Agriculture. "These are areas where there really isn't any economic development going on."

Jolliffe tracks "persistent poverty" counties, ones in which at least 20 percent of the population have lived below the poverty level for at least 30 years. There were 386 persistent poverty counties in 2000, and 340 were outside metropolitan areas.

None were in the Northeast. Most were in the South.