South By North Strategies, Ltd.

A new report from the N.C. Budget and Tax Center traces the extent of concentrated poverty across the state.

In 2006-2010, there were 2,195 census tracts and 9,013,443 million people living in North Carolina. 100 census tracts were concentrated-poverty neighborhoods, representing roughly 1 of 22 neighborhoods in the state. Of the 293,135 residents living in these neighborhoods, 143,445 residents lived below the federal poverty level—which is nearly 104,000 more than the 39,632 poor residents in 2000. The concentrated poverty rate—the proportion of all poor people residing in a concentrated-poverty neighborhood—was 10.2 percent in 2006-2010, up 6.1 percentage points since 2000 when the concentrated poverty rate was 4.1 percent.
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The 100 concentrated-poverty neighborhoods were located in only 30 of the state’s 100 counties, with the largest share located in Guilford and Mecklenburg counties. Of these 100 neighborhoods, 63 were in urban counties, with the remaining 37 located in rural counties. The largest share of people who were poor within these 100 neighborhoods were also clustered in Guilford and Mecklenburg counties….