The United States is the richest country on earth, yet tens of millions of Americans still live in poverty. In certain parts of the country, a lack of access to food, health care, shelter, and quality education is widespread.
While most of these high-needs places are located in the Southern states, the East and West coasts have more than their fair share. In fact, two California cities — plus New York and Newark, New Jersey — were recently ranked among the top 20 “neediest cities” in America by WalletHub.
On the methodology:
In order to determine the cities with the neediest populations, WalletHub compared 182 cities — including the 150 most populated U.S. cities, plus at least two of the most populated cities in each state — across two key dimensions, “Economic Well-Being” and “Health & Safety.”
We evaluated those dimensions using 28 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the highest level of economic disadvantage. Data for metrics marked with an asterisk (*) were available at the state level only.
Finally, we determined each city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample. In determining our sample, we considered only the city proper in each case and excluded cities in the surrounding metro area.
The top 10 neediest cities in America are:
Detroit, Michigan
Gulfport, Mississippi
Brownsville, Texas
Cleveland, Ohio
Shreveport, Louisiana
Laredo, Texas
Augusta, Georgia
New Orleans, Louisiana
Corpus Christi, Texas
Birmingham, Alabama
These are the 10 neediest cities in California, according to WalletHub (national rank in parentheses):
Los Angeles (15)
Fresno (16)
San Bernardino (27)
San Francisco (55)
Long Beach (61)
Bakersfield (66)
Stockton (68)
Modesto (77)
Oakland (79)
Sacramento (90)
See the full list here.
Data and rankings were compiled by WalletHub and do not reflect statistics on all cities.