The 10 Poorest Cities In South Carolina For 2023

South Carolina brings to mind images of Columbia, beautiful landscapes, and some of the best people you’ll find in the good ole US of A.

However, like all states, South Carolina has certain places that are going on hard times. These South Carolina 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 poorest places in South Carolina.

To do so, we analyzed the newest Census data from the American Community Survey for the 65 places in South Carolina 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 South Carolina? According to the facts, Lancaster is the poorest place in South Carolina for 2023.

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

For more South Carolina reading, check out:

• Best Places To Live In South Carolina
• Cheapest Places To Live In South Carolina
• Most Dangerous Cities In South Carolina
• The poorest states in the US
• The poorest cities in the US

Table Of Contents: Top Ten | Methodology | Summary | Table

Next 10 Cities

Methodology: How We Determined The Poorest Places In South Carolina for 2023

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 2017-2021 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 65 places with more than 5,000 people in South Carolina, we ranked each place from 1 to 65 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, Lancaster, crowned the “Poorest Place In South Carolina For 2023”.

This report has been updated for 2023, which is our tenth time ranking the poorest places in South Carolina.

Summary: The Poorest Places In South Carolina For 2023

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

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 South Carolina, according to data:

Richest: Tega Cay
2nd Richest: James Island
3rd Richest: Fort Mill

For more South Carolina reading, check out:

• Richest Cities In South Carolina
• Safest Places In South Carolina
• Worst Places To Live In South Carolina
• Most Expensive Places To Live In South Carolina

Detailed List Of The Poorest Places To Live In South Carolina