15. Salt Lake City, Utah
206% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
73% growth in poor population.
In Salt Lake City 19.4% of the residents live below the poverty level, compared to just over 12% for the entire state of Utah. In 2013, Brookings Institution fellow Elizabeth Kneebone told kuer.org the population of poor people in Salt Lake City's suburbs had doubled in an 11-year period.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
14. Atlanta, Georgia
213% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
90% growth in poor population.
Atlanta is known as the "capital of the new south" and viewed as an economic engine for the Southeast. However, the poverty rate in the city is shockingly high, with more than 24% of the people there living below the poverty line.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
13. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colorado
218% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
76% growth in poor population.
Nearly 19% of Denver's residents live below the poverty line, compared to about 13% of the state's residents. Like many metro areas on this list, Denver has experienced a surge of poverty in its suburbs in recent years.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
12. Orlando, Florida
221% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
81% growth in poor population.
Orlando — a city many associate with the "happiest place on earth," Disney World — has more than 18% of its residents living below the poverty level compared to 15.6% for the state. In 2011, the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting found the number of kids in Orlando living in poverty had spiked 50% since before the recession.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
11. Cape Coral, Florida
232% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
110% growth in poor population.
The poverty rate in Cape Coral proper is not particularly high. However, poverty in that city's suburbs jumped from 11.3% to 18.6% between 2007 and 2010, according to a previous Brookings Institution report cited by the Huffington Post.
The real state downturn pummeled the area around that same period; in 2008 The Economist called Cape Coral "ground-zero of the housing market collapse."
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
10. Greenville, South Carolina
244% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
62% growth in poor population.
While Greenville has a low unemployment rate of just 3.8% as of April (the national rate was 6.3% that month), the Greenville News reported last month more and more people in Greenville County are living in poor neighborhoods.
Last year, Neighborhoodscout.com found that Greenville's Woodside neighborhood was the 8th-most dangerous neighborhood in the U.S.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
9. Winston-Salem, North Carolina
248% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
82% growth in poor population.
With 22% of its residents living below the poverty level, the Forsyth County seat Winston-Salem is one of many North Carolina cities struggling with poverty. A local news report attributed the high poverty in Forsyth to a large wealth gap in the county.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
8. Scranton, Pennsylvania
260% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
32% growth in poor population.
Scranton — an industrial city that was home to the fictional paper company Dunder Mifflin in “The Office” — has 20% of its residents living in poverty compared to 13% for the rest of the state.
In March, the Scranton Times-Review reported that 67.9% of the kids in the city qualified for free lunch, which was a nearly 17% increase since the previous five years.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
7. Grand Rapids, Michigan
281% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
89% growth in poor population.
Grand Rapids — a center for furniture manufacturing known as “furniture city” — has an unbelievably high number of people living in poverty, 26.8%, compared to Michigan’s 16.3%.
MLive.com reported last year that poverty in Grand Rapids and its suburbs was soaring.
“Structural unemployment has hit Michigan worse than other places,” Grand Valley State University economist Paul Isley told MLive.com. “Some relatively decent, well-paying jobs that didn’t require a lot of skills existed in Michigan at the beginning of the 2000s. What we saw (through the recessions) was those types of jobs disappear. That results in a pretty quick jump in poverty for us. All of that in Grand Rapids bleeds out into the suburbs.”
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
6. Greensboro-High Point, North Carolina
290% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
77% growth in poor population.
The percentage of poor people living in Greensboro — home of several universities including Guilford College and a branch of the University of North Carolina — is nearly 19%, higher than both the state and overall U.S. level.
The city and its surrounding areas are part of the 12th Congressional district, which saw the nation’s biggest increase in suburban poor people between 2000 and 2011, according to a previous Brookings Institution report that the Raleigh News & Record reported on last year.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
5. Portland, Oregon-Vancouver, Washington
301% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
61% growth in poor population.
In 2012, Matt Yglesias reported in Slate that Portland was undergoing an “economic renaissance,” but Census data from that year still showed that more than 17% of its population was living below the poverty level.
Poverty has plagued pockets of the city as well as its suburbs, as Portland State University’s Institute of Metropolitan Studies reported in 2010. Those pockets are concentrated in downtown Portland in areas with relatively high minority populations, according to that report.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
4. Charlotte, North Carolina
326% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
97% growth in poor population.
Charlotte is a major banking center and hub for U.S. Airways. However, the recession pushed many people in North Carolina deeper into poverty, according to a 2011 report from the North Carolina Budget & Tax Center.
In 2012, a community agency serving low-income people called the Charlotte Area Fund told the Charlotte Post it had served three times as many people as it had planned on serving in 2010-2011.
“The face of suburbia has changed as the face of poverty has changed. We’ve restructured ourselves to meet the need, are calling upon other agencies that serve the same population,” Karen Browning, executive director of the Charlotte Area Fund, told that paper.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
3. Raleigh, North Carolina
339% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
97% growth in poor population.
Raleigh, along with Durham and Chapel Hill, is part of the so-called "Research Triangle" that is a major technology hub in the Southeast. Still, more than 16% of the city's residents live in poverty, and the Brookings Institution report shows it has impoverished pockets.
Indeed, UNC Law School professor Gene Nichol has written in the News & Observer that "much of North Carolina’s most intense poverty, we’ll see, is found in the center cities of Durham, Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro and Winston-Salem."
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
2. Colorado Springs, Colorado
688% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
88% growth in poor population.
In 2010, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported on Census data finding that impoverished areas were growing in El Paso County, Colorado, where Colorado Springs is located. Virtually the entire southeast portion of the city consisted of areas where 20% or more of residents lived below the poverty line, the Gazette reported.
Poverty is a statewide problem. Last year, a report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that Colorado had the second-fastest rate of child poverty in America, the Denver Post reported.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.
1. Boise, Idaho
827% growth in poor population in tracts with poverty rates 20% or higher.
108% growth in poor population.
While Marketplace reported last year that in Boise “the local economy has a pulse once more,” the mortgage crisis had a severe impact on Idaho. Even after U.S. the recession officially ended in 2009, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that the housing crisis was worsening in places in the Midwest like Boise, Idaho.
Meanwhile, Boise had thousands of layoffs at Micron Technology and the grocery store Albertson’s, Bloomberg pointed out.
Based on a Brookings report comparing 2008–2012 to 2000.