INLAND EMPIRE – (INT) – The Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area had the highest poverty rate among the nation’s twenty-five largest Metropolitan areas last year, according to new figures released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

The rate of 17.5 percent was improved from 2014 when it was above 18 percent.

California’s 2015 poverty rate was 15.3. San Francisco had the lowest. Los Angeles had one of the sharpest improvements, falling to just under 16 percent.

The California Budget and Policy Center noted that California's 2015 overall poverty rate and child poverty rate are both down from 2014, but remain well above the onset of the national recession in 2007. Nearly 6 million Californians, including almost 2 million children, lived below the federal poverty line last year.

Nationwide, the Census Bureau said the heaviest concentrations of poverty in Metropolitan areas were in the West and the South. Alternatively, lower poverty MSAs are mostly located in the Midwest.

Story Date: September 21, 2016