Katrinaland Updates

In case you didn't know.....

Many Hurricane Katrina victims faced difficult living conditions even before the storm arrived. Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama are, respectively, the first, second, and eighth poorest states in the nation. And of the 5.8 million individuals in these states who lived in the areas struck hardest by the hurricane, more than one million lived in poverty prior to the hurricane's onset.

The information provided below helps explain why relief efforts are so important to Katrina victims. Many of the storm's victims have little or no resources on which to rely in these difficult times.

New Orleans - Poverty and Lack of a Vehicle

Of the 5.8 million people living in the areas hit hardest by Katrina, some 1.3 million lived in the New Orleans metropolitan area, with close to one-half million people living in the city of New Orleans itself. The poverty rate in the city is exceptionally high. The Census data indicate that more than one in four - 28 percent - of the city's residents were living in poverty before the hurricane descended upon the city. Of the 245 large cities in the nation (those with populations of 100,000 or more), New Orleans tied for the sixth poorest in the 2000 census.

In 2004, more than 19 percent of Louisianans were poor, far above the national poverty rate of about 13 percent, and higher than the poverty rate in all states except one.

Mississippi had the highest state poverty rate in the nation - 21.6 percent.

Alabama had the eighth highest rate, at 16.1 percent.

The table also shows that the incomes of the typical (or median) household in these three states are well below the national average and are among the lowest in the nation.

The poverty rates for individuals who lived in the areas hit hardest by the hurricane, based on 2000 census figures: These areas -the counties and parishes that have been declared eligible for federal disaster assistance for individuals - include about two-thirds of the population of Louisiana and Mississippi and one-sixth of the population of Alabama.

The census data indicate that 5.8 million people (in 2.1 million households) lived in these counties and parishes in 2000.

More than 1 million of these people - or nearly one-fifth of the population affected by the hurricane - lived in poverty.

March 2007