California has 6 million people living in poverty and a poverty rate of 16.3%, slightly higher than the national rate of 15.1%., according to statistics compiled over three years by the U.S. Census Bureau. Those numbers don’t offer much comfort, but they could be much worse.

And now the Census Bureau says they probably are.   

The federal government has been experimenting with ways to upgrade the gauge of poverty it has used since the 1960s and rolled out phase two of a new, experimental federal standard that factors in an area’s cost-of-living and includes new data, some of which didn’t exist decades ago.

The result is a much gloomier statistical snapshot of California that identifies it as the most poverty-stricken state in the union.

California’s new, not-so-improved poverty rate is 23.5%, not 16.3%, and 9 million of its residents live below the poverty line, according to the new model. The next closest state is Arizona at 19.8%, followed by Florida (19.5%), Nevada (19.4%) and Georgia (19%). The District of Columbia checks in just behind California at 23.2%.   

The old list of most poverty-ridden states is led by Mississippi (21.1%), followed by New Mexico (20.0%), Arizona (19.2%), Louisiana (19.1) and Georgia (18.6%).

Overall, the model identifies 16.1% of the nation as in poverty, one point higher than the old method.

Census statistics are sociopolitical snapshots of the country―varied in their subject, context and focus. The new model “creates a more complex statistical picture, incorporating additional items, such as thresholds that vary geographically by housing costs, tax payments, work expenses and in-kind benefits in its family resource estimates,” according to the Census Bureau.

Although the new model includes government-aid programs such as food stamps, housing vouchers and heating subsidies as income for the first time, 13 states besides California fared worse using the new model.

But none slipped as badly as California. Its poverty rate increased 7.3 percentage points. Hawaii was next (4.9 points), followed by Nevada (4.3), District of Columbia (4.3), Florida (4.2) and New Jersey (3.7).

Mississippi’s poverty rate improved the most (5.3 points), followed by New Mexico (4.6), West Virginia (4.6), Kentucky (3.7) and South Dakota (3.6).

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

California's Poverty Rate Highest in U.S. by New Federal Measure (by Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee)

Ranks of Poor Americans at Record High Even with Aid (by Frank Bass, BloombergBusinessweek)

Current Population Reports (U.S. Census) (pdf)