Poorest Cities In Missouri For 2021

Missouri brings to mind images of Jefferson City, beautiful landscapes, and some of the best people you'll find in the good ole US of A.

However, like all states, Missouri has certain places that are going on hard times. These places have an above average percent of people that are living in poverty, out of work, or not making as much as they should be.

With all the talk about income inequality going on around the country, we thought it prudent to take a look at the places in each state that are struggling to make it even as the economy continues to improve. So we set our sites on bringing attention to the places in Missouri that could use a helping hand.

To do so, we analyzed the newest Census data from the American Community Survey for the 132 places in Missouri with more than 5,000 people.

Again, this isn't a commentary on the people that live there or the vibrant culture and traditions of these places. Instead, it's just a look at the facts.

What's the poorst city in Missouri? According to the facts, Charleston is the poorest place in Missouri for 2021.

Rich people more your cup of tea? Feel free to check out the best places in Missouri or the most dangerous.

For more on how we calculated the top ten, and for more information about these places, read on.

If you're looking for something more national, check out the poorest states in America or the poorest cities in America.

For more Missouri reading, check out:

• Best Places To Live In Missouri
• Cheapest Places To Live In Missouri
• Most Dangerous Cities in Missouri

Next 10 Cities

How We Determined The Poorest Places In Missouri for 2021

The first thing that comes to most people's minds when they think about determining the poorest places is to simply the poverty rate. That is, the number of people living below a federally established level of income for a household of a certain size.

However, we don't think that one statistic wholly encompasses what it means to be one of the "poorest places". So we looked at this set of criteria from the newly released 2015-2019 American Community Survey:

• Poverty Level
• Median Household Income adjusted for the cost of living
• Unemployment Rate

The "median household income adjusted for the cost of living" attempts to gauge how expensive it is to live in a place and how that impacts the quality of life. For example, a town might have fewer people living below the official poverty line, but the cost of living is so high they'd still feel poor.

The unemployment rate tries to capture the prospects for improvement in the city or town. If more people are employed, the brighter the future looks and vice versa.

After we collected the data for all 132 places with more than 5,000 people in Missouri, we ranked each place from 1 to 132 for each of the criteria, with 1 being the poorest.

We then averaged all the rankings for a place into a "Poor Score" with the place having the lowest overall Poor Score, Charleston, crowned the "Poorest Place In Missouri For 2021". You can download the data here.

There You Have It - The Poorest Places In Missouri For 2021

Like we said earlier, when we set out to identify the poorest places in Missouri, we weren't sure what we'd encounter, but it ended up being some of the best places to live in Missouri.

When you look at the data, the cities and places mentioned above meet the criteria for being at the very bottom of the income ladder for everyone that lives there.

If you're curious enough, here are the richest cities in Missouri, according to data:

Richest: Des Peres
2nd Richest: Ladue
3rd Richest: Glendale

For more Missouri reading, check out:

• Richest Cities In Missouri
• Safest Places In Missouri
• Worst Places To Live In Missouri
• Most Expensive Places To Live In Missouri

Detailed List Of The Poorest Places To Live In Missouri