Multiple Montana Counties In Persistent Poverty, According to Census

According to the United States Census Bureau, four counties in Montana are labeled under "Persistent Poverty."

What is "Persistent Poverty?"

Persistent poverty is different than poverty or chronic poverty. Persistent "focuses on places with a long history of high poverty while chronic poverty is used to identify people consistently in poverty," according to the Census.

Looking at the data

The Census data looked at numbers spanning from 1989 - 2015-2019. What the survey found was that persistent poverty typically sprung up in counties with smaller populations. The purple counties in the map below are ones that were deemed in the persistent poverty category.

US Counties in Persistent Poverty: 1989 to 2015-2019
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The four Montana counties were Big Horn, Blaine, Glacier and Roosevelt. All four counties follow the trend of less populous areas appearing on the list. None of the four counties have populations of above 15 thousand people, according to the latest Census Survey. Glacier County was the largest with almost 14 thousand people and Blaine County was the smallest with just over 7 thousand people.

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National trends

The South's counties appeared most across all poverty data. "Over 80% were in the South and nearly 20% of all counties in the South were in persistent poverty... More than half (54.9%) of people who lived in persistent poverty were in the South region, outsizing the South's 38% share of U.S. population."

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Interestingly enough, almost the entire Northeast was without a county in persistent poverty. The only counties were two in New York and Philadelphia County in Pennsylvania.

Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, Wyoming, Nevada, Oregon and Hawai'i all had zero counties make the list.