New Square & Monroe Have the Highest Poverty Rate In The Entire USA Yet Have the Highest Real Estate Prices

A report published by financial news and opinion website 24/7 Wall Street gives New Square the dubious honor of being both the poorest town in New York State and the town with the highest poverty rate in the nation.

According to the report (http://bit.ly/2G1WaPU), the median household income in New Square is $21,773, $38,968 less than the median household income in the state.

Kiryas Joel came in a close second to New Square, with median household incomes of almost $5,000 higher. 

Only four towns on the state by state listing of poorest towns in the United States had median household incomes lower than New Square:  South Tucson, Arizona, East Cleveland, Ohio, Brownsville, Florida and Ville Platte, Louisiana.

Poverty rates in the study were defined as an annual income of less than $25,100 per year for a family of four, with New Square’s 70 percent rate far surpassing Centerville, Illinois’s 50.1 percent poverty rate, the second highest in the nation. 

New Square also had the highest rate of SNAP recipients in the country with 77.1 percent of the village’s residents relying on supplemental aid programs to feed their families.

According to the report, towns with a significant population of low income residents typically have relatively low housing prices. New Square was the exception to that rule, with median housing prices higher than that of the state average.

The report was based on data from the United States Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, with social and economic factors based on five year estimates for the period of 2012 through 2016. 

Among the areas studied by the report were percentage of adults with high school and college diplomas, local poverty and SNAP recipient rates and median home values.