The town most commonly recognized as the poorest in Arkansas is Helena-West Helena. According to the latest available data and rankings, Helena-West Helena consistently tops lists of the state’s poorest places due to its combination of low median household income, high poverty rate, and limited economic opportunities.
Specifically, recent sources highlight Helena-West Helena’s median household income of about $31,118 and a poverty rate of 33.9% as of 2024 (some sources use slightly different data but consistently place Helena-West Helena at the top).
However, it’s important to note that some national rankings, such as those focusing on the single poorest town per state (rather than city), have identified Marianna as Arkansas’s poorest town according to median household income, especially when considering smaller towns with populations between 1,000 and 25,000. Still, for cities and larger towns, Helena-West Helena is most frequently cited as Arkansas’s poorest.
Helena-West Helena is widely considered the poorest city in Arkansas, while Marianna is sometimes named the poorest town in the state by certain national rankings. The distinction depends on the population size and methodology used by the ranking source.
Sources
[1] https://www.roadsnacks.net/poorest-places-in-arkansas/
[2] https://hdpulse.nimhd.nih.gov/data-portal/_social/poverty/table?demo=00008&statefips=05
[3] https://alec.org/article/arkansas-ranks-among-top-ten-states-rich-states-poor-states-on-katv-news/
[4] https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/poverty-5046/
[5] https://stacker.com/stories/arkansas/cities-arkansas-most-living-poverty
