The Poorest County in Illinois Really Should Be in Kentucky

I want to be clear that I love the people of Kentucky and I don't want anyone there to misunderstand what I'm about to share. But, the poorest county in Illinois based on new data really should just be a part of Kentucky. I'll explain why.

This new ranking of the poorest counties isn't based on some lone blogger who just has bad opinions about Illinois places. The 24/7 Wall St ranking says it's based on numbers from "five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey". That's about as scientific as you can get when it comes to lists like this.

What is the poorest county in Illinois?

Answer - Alexander County which is located in the extreme southern tip of Illinois.

Alexander County has an unemployment rate of over 9% at last check and a poverty rate over 21%. So many in that area are struggling.

I've lived in that part of America before and I can tell you that many of the northern Kentucky counties that border Illinois are in a similar situation. Great people, but many struggle financially and poverty is on a similar scale to what is happening in Alexander County, Illinois.

Culturally, Alexander County is very similar to northern Kentucky, too and that's not a bad thing, by the way. Again, great people many of whom live a simple life where getting by day to day is all they're concerned with. The truth is many of those people are richer in a completely and more important kind of way, in my opinion.