Joel Osteen criticised

Biggest Megachurches USA

The Poorest Town of USA

                   POOREST  TOWN  of  USA   

Beattyville sits at the northern tip of a belt of the most 

enduring rural poverty in America. The belt runs from 

eastern Kentucky through the Mississippi delta to the Texas 

border with Mexico, taking in two of the other towns – one 

overwhelmingly African American and the other exclusively 

Latino – at the bottom of the low income scale. The town at 

the very bottom of that census list is an outlier far to the west 

on an Indian reservation in Arizona.

Beattyville’s median household income is just $12,361 (about £8,000) a year, placing it as the third lowest income town in the US, according to that Census Bureau 2008-12 survey.

Nationally, the median household income was $53,915 in 2012. In real terms, the income of people in Beattyville is lower than it was in 1980.

The town’s poverty rate is 44% above the national average. Half of its families live below the poverty line. That includes three-quarters of those with children, with the attendant consequences. More than one-third of teenagers drop out of high school or leave without graduating. Just 5% of residents have college degrees.

Surrounding communities are little better. Beattyville is the capital of Lee County, named after the commander of the Confederate army of Northern Virginia in the civil war, General Robert E Lee.

Five of the 10 poorest counties in the US run in a line through eastern Kentucky and they include Lee County. Life expectancy in the county is among the worst in the US, which is not unconnected to the fact that more than half the population is obese. Men lived an average of just 68.3 years in 2013, a little more than eight years short of the national average. Women lived 76.4 years on average, about five years short of national life expectancy.