Louisiana’s Struggle with Rising Living Costs and Poverty Rates

Poverty in Louisiana is a huge problem. And the gap continues to widen as folks try to make ends meet. Many people are working paycheck to paycheck to keep pace with prices.

Several parishes in the state land on the census bureau's list of the poorest parishes in the nation. Many of them have poverty rates for 2020-2024 above 25%. And the numbers are not getting better.

Many of the parishes on this list are in northeast and northwest Louisiana. Caddo has a poverty rate of more than 20%. But that is an improvement from 2015-2019 when the poverty rate in Caddo was 23.3%. Bienville Parish is near 30%. DeSoto Parish is over 20%.

READ MORE: What Parishes Pay Teachers the Most?

Here are the 20 poorest counties and parishes in the United States:

1. Oglala Lakota South Dakota 57.6%
2. Todd County South Dakota 48.4%
3. Willacy County Texas 46.9%
4. Corson County South Dakota 44.2%
5. Dimmit County Texas 41.1%
6. McCreary County Kentucky 38.9%
7. Zapata County Texas 38.4%
8. Magoffin County Kentucky 38.2%
9. Wolfe County Kentucky 37.7%
10. Holmes County Mississippi 36.4%
11. Owsley County Kentucky 36.1%
12. East Carroll Louisiana 35.2%
13. McDowell County West Virginia 34.2%
14. Madison Parish Louisiana 34.5%
15. Tensas Parish Louisiana 34.4%
16. Zavala County Texas 33.9%
17. Starr County Texas 33.5%
18. Duval County Texas 33.3%
19. McKinley County New Mexico 33.2%
20. Socorro County New Mexico 33.2%