We're Number Six!

In 2002, the New Times sarcastically celebrated Miami's status as the poorest city in America by investigating the depths of poverty in a story called "We're Number One!". When that issue was in circulation, Mayor Manny Diaz announced a string of new anti-poverty measures, though the we followed up the story a year later with "We're Still Number One!"

And it worked. Kind of. Five years later we're still in the top ten. But at number six amongst cities with population of 250,000 or greater, things seem to be getting better. Poverty's on the run... Right....

The figures reflect poverty rates from 2007. The report (you can see the pdf here) from the US Census Bureau states that the city of Miami's poverty is at 25.5%, down from 26.9% in 2006, and the 32% in 2001 --- which made us number one.

--Kyle Munzenrieder