Which states bucked the trend in 2023 (high poverty blue states or low poverty red states)?
Executive summary
In 2023 the national official poverty rate was about 11–12.9% depending on measure; state rates ranged roughly from the low 6–7% up to nearly 19% with Louisiana, Mississippi and other Southern states among the highest and New Hampshire and Utah among the lowest (official and SPM vary by state) [1] [2] [3]. Most reporting and Census briefs show that between 2022 and 2023 poverty moved little in most states — seven states decreased, three increased, and forty did not change significantly — so the “trend” was stability with a few regional exceptions [4] [5].
1. What “the trend” means: blue = low, red = high — broadly true but messy
Many analysts summarize a durable pattern: Democratic-leaning (“blue”) states on average report higher incomes and lower poverty rates than Republican-leaning (“red”) states, especially across measures like median household income and many county-level poverty comparisons [6] [7]. But this shorthand obscures important measurement differences — the official poverty measure, the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), and three‑year state averages can point in different directions for particular states — so broad colors do not map perfectly to every state’s outcome [2] [5].
2. Who bucked the pattern in 2023: specific outliers
Census releases identify concrete exceptions. Utah and New Hampshire rank among the lowest official poverty rates (blue and red labels aside), while Louisiana and Mississippi appear among the highest — Louisiana was singled out at about 18.9% in some state-level reporting [2] [3]. The SPM flips some comparisons: the SPM was lower than the official measure in 32 states and shows Maine with one of the lowest SPM rates and California one of the highest SPM rates — illustrating that some traditionally “blue” states (e.g., California) can look worse under alternate measures [2].
3. Small year‑to‑year movement, big regional persistence
Census and reporting emphasize that between 2022 and 2023 most states saw little statistically significant change: seven states’ poverty rates decreased, three increased, and 40 did not change significantly [4] [5]. That means the 2023 story is less about a wave of states flipping from high-to-low or vice versa and more about entrenched regional patterns — a contiguous Southern belt contains many of the highest-rate states [8].
4. Why some blue states still show high poverty (method and economy)
Where blue states register comparatively high poverty on some metrics it often reflects measurement choices and local economic structure. The SPM includes taxes, work expenses and geographic housing cost adjustments; that raises measured poverty in high-cost blue states like California while lowering it in some lower-cost states [2]. News outlets and analysts note that inequality within prosperous blue states can produce both high median incomes and substantial low-income populations at the same time [9].
5. Political framing and selective claims: what to watch for
Advocacy and partisan claims about “all poor places are red” or “blue states are poor” have factual anchors but overstate uniformity. PolitiFact and other fact-checkers show the underlying data often supports a majority of high-poverty counties being in Republican-led states but also stress definitions matter (which election defines “red”/“blue,” which poverty metric is used) [10] [7]. Analysts with explicit agendas sometimes emphasize single metrics (median income, per‑capita income, or SPM) that best fit their narrative [7] [9].
6. What the data does not answer (and what the sources omit)
Available sources do not mention causal attribution at a granular level for each state in 2023 — e.g., whether a state’s change was driven chiefly by policy choices, migration, cost of living shifts, or measurement noise in the ACS (not found in current reporting). The Census material and secondary reports document levels and statistical significance but do not resolve whether partisan governance causes those levels [1] [5] [2].
7. Bottom line for readers
The simple claim — that 2023 saw “high‑poverty blue states” or “low‑poverty red states” bucking the national pattern — is only partially supported: most of the long‑standing pattern (lower poverty in many blue states, higher in many red states) held, but notable exceptions appear depending on the poverty measure used (official vs. SPM) and specific states like California (high on SPM) or Utah/New Hampshire (low on official measures) diverge from simplistic partisan maps [2] [3] [4]. Reporters and policy wonks must cite which poverty measure and which time window they use when asserting that a state “bucked the trend” [2] [5].