Eastern Iowa is Home to the Poorest City & Town in the State

According to some recent reports, both the poorest city and town in Iowa are located in the eastern portion of the state.

Let's start with the poorest town in Iowa. For 24/7 Wall St.'s list, they looked at 2022 data from "any city, town, or unincorporated community with populations between 1,000 and 25,000 people." Out of the 260 Iowa towns that were considered, Oelwein was named the poorest in the state.

Located in Fayette County, Oelwein was home to 5,934 residents in 2022. The study says that it had a median household income of $41,629, which is considerably lower than the median for all of Iowa (around $70,571). In addition, the town has a poverty rate of 17.5%, and only 13.7% of adults have a bachelor's degree or higher. The median home value in Oelwein is $97,000, while the median home value for the entire state is $181,600.

As far a cities go, there were eight metro areas in Iowa that were considered for 24/7 Wall St.'s list. The lowest of those eight was Waterloo/Cedar Falls. The median income in Waterloo/Cedar Falls was $69,588 in 2022, which was actually pretty close to the median for the entire state of Iowa. The cities had a poverty rate of 15.3%, and 4.7% of households had incomes under $10,000.

Overall, Iowa is the 20th poorest state in America. That's according to a September article from 24/7 Wall St. that reviewed "the median household annual income in every state from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey" and listed the 31 states with "median household incomes significantly lower than the national median annual income." That report also says that 4.3% of households in Iowa have incomes that are less than $10,000, which is the 8th lowest in the country, and that around 11% of the population lives under the poverty line, the 18th lowest.