Like all states, Kentucky has certain places that are going on hard times. These Kentucky places have an above-average percentage of people living in poverty, out of work, or not making as much as they should be.
Even as the economy continues to improve, it’s worthwhile to look at the places in each state struggling to make ends meet. So we set our sites on locating the poorest places in Kentucky.
To do so, we used Saturday Night Science to analyze the newest Census data from the American Community Survey for the 80 cities in Kentucky with more than 5,000 people.
$36,741 median income · 38.0% poverty · #3 lowest income in Kentucky
Located in
Rowan County, Kentucky
Morehead, unfortunately, ranks as the poorest place in Kentucky thanks to combination of low pay and and a lack of jobs.
The city of 6,870 people averages the 3rd lowest median household income in Kentucky and the highest poverty rate. At the very least, the cost of living ranks in the bottom 15% of place in the state, so things like housing are relatively affordable.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$31,106 median income · 31.0% poverty · #1 lowest income in Kentucky
Located in
Bell County, Kentucky
The second poorest city in Kentucky is Middlesborough.
The city ranks as having the 3rd highest incidence of poverty and lowest median household income. However, the unemployment rate ‘only’ ranks as the 6th highest in the Bluegrass State.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$38,147 median income · 30.9% poverty · #4 lowest income in Kentucky
Placing as the third poorest city, Williamsburg’s median income ranks as the 4th lowest.
And that’s a sign that there’s a relatively substantial jump in the quality of the economy from second to third place on our list. The poverty rate is 30.9% and ranks near the bottom of places in the state.
But what makes up for the relatively low incomes of the city is its low cost of living. The income you do make here goes further than in most parts of the Bluegrass State.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$34,704 median income · 27.2% poverty · #2 lowest income in Kentucky
Located in
Pulaski County, Kentucky
Somerset ranks as the fourth poorest place in Kentucky.
The town ranks as having the 2nd lowest median household income and the 8th highest incidence of poverty in the state.
That being said, there’s still a ton of cultural diversity in the city as it hosts many events throughout the year.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$39,955 median income · 27.1% poverty · #6 lowest income in Kentucky
Located in
Pike County, Kentucky
The fifth poorest city in Kentucky is Pikeville.
The city ranks as having the 6th lowest median income in the state. However, an extremely low cost of living prevents a good number of folks from living in poverty as the poverty rate only ranks as the 9th highest in Kentucky.
Still not the best news for Pikeville.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$40,965 median income · 26.9% poverty · #7 lowest income in Kentucky
Located in
Graves County, Kentucky
Mayfield ranks as the sixth poorest place in the Bluegrass State.
It ranks as having the 10th highest incidence of poverty and the 6highest unemployment rate.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$44,952 median income · 30.4% poverty · #11 lowest income in Kentucky
Located in
Wayne County, Kentucky
Monticello places as the seventh poorest city in Kentucky.
The city of over 5,753 ranks as having the 6th highest incidence of poverty in the state. However, it has a very low cost of living which helps to pay the bills each month.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$39,013 median income · 24.3% poverty · #5 lowest income in Kentucky
Located in
Mason County, Kentucky
Maysville ranks as the eighth poorest city in Kentucky.
The big issue for the town is the unemployment rate which ranks as one of the highest in the state.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$47,591 median income · 30.2% poverty · #15 lowest income in Kentucky
Located in
Laurel County, Kentucky
London couldn’t stay out of the top ten poorest places in Kentucky; it ranks number 9.
While the median income is the 15th lowest, there are a substantial number of people that live below the poverty line. Overall, London ranks as having the 7th most people living in poverty of all the places we analyzed in Kentucky.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$44,347 median income · 24.3% poverty · #10 lowest income in Kentucky
Located in
Grayson County, Kentucky
And rounding out the top ten poorest cities in Kentucky is Leitchfield.
The city of 6,819 people ranks in the bottom 20% for both median income and poverty rate in the Bluegrass State.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Kentucky’s statewide median.
Kentucky statewide median: $63,726
Kentucky statewide median: 16.1%
Kentucky statewide median: 4.9%
On the map
Where poverty hits hardest in Kentucky
Saturday Night Science
How we determined the poorest places in Kentucky for 2026
The first thing that comes to most people’s minds when they think about determining the poorest places is to simply the poverty rate. That is, the number of people living below a federally established level of income for a household of a certain size.
However, we don’t think that one statistic wholly encompasses what it means to be one of the “poorest places”. So we used Saturday Night Science to look at this set of criteria from the newly released 2020-2024 American Community Survey:
- Poverty Level
- Median Household Income
After we collected the data for all 80 places with more than 5,000 people in Kentucky, we ranked each place from 1 to 80 for each of the criteria, with 1 being the poorest.
We then averaged all the rankings for a place into a “Poor Score” with the place having the lowest overall Poor Score, Morehead, crowned the “Poorest Place In Kentucky For 2026”. The median Kentucky home is 43 years old — old enough that it pays to compare home warranty plans before something expensive breaks.
The full plate
Detailed list of the poorest places to live in Kentucky
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Poor Score | Population | Median income | Poverty | Unemployment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Morehead | 2.00 | 6,870 | $36,741 | 38.0% | 5.4% |
| 2 | Middlesborough | 2.00 | 9,123 | $31,106 | 31.0% | 8.5% |
| 3 | Williamsburg | 4.00 | 5,270 | $38,147 | 30.9% | 3.9% |
| 4 | Somerset | 5.00 | 12,216 | $34,704 | 27.2% | 8.7% |
| 5 | Pikeville | 7.50 | 7,490 | $39,955 | 27.1% | 3.2% |
| 6 | Mayfield | 8.50 | 9,868 | $40,965 | 26.9% | 3.4% |
| 7 | Monticello | 8.50 | 5,753 | $44,952 | 30.4% | 2.0% |
| 8 | Maysville | 10.50 | 8,737 | $39,013 | 24.3% | 4.4% |
| 9 | London | 11.00 | 7,561 | $47,591 | 30.2% | 3.5% |
| 10 | Leitchfield | 12.50 | 6,819 | $44,347 | 24.3% | 10.2% |
| 11 | Lebanon | 12.50 | 6,430 | $45,479 | 25.6% | 3.7% |
| 12 | Murray | 13.00 | 18,080 | $44,091 | 24.1% | 5.8% |
| 13 | Hazard | 14.00 | 5,008 | $51,016 | 31.5% | 7.1% |
| 14 | Glasgow | 15.50 | 15,197 | $43,074 | 21.9% | 4.3% |
| 15 | Bowling Green | 16.00 | 75,388 | $48,873 | 25.6% | 4.9% |
| 16 | Central City | 18.50 | 5,707 | $50,885 | 25.6% | 9.4% |
| 17 | Corbin | 19.00 | 8,246 | $51,065 | 26.0% | 7.2% |
| 18 | Campbellsville | 19.50 | 11,622 | $49,644 | 23.4% | 7.4% |
| 19 | Cynthiana | 20.00 | 6,458 | $54,647 | 30.5% | 1.3% |
| 20 | Oak Grove | 20.00 | 7,962 | $49,354 | 23.1% | 9.5% |
| 21 | Russellville | 20.00 | 7,316 | $45,484 | 20.7% | 6.4% |
| 22 | Paducah | 22.00 | 26,845 | $49,915 | 22.3% | 4.0% |
| 23 | Hopkinsville | 24.50 | 30,906 | $49,139 | 19.3% | 6.2% |
| 24 | Henderson | 24.50 | 27,852 | $48,186 | 18.7% | 2.4% |
| 25 | Ashland | 25.50 | 21,295 | $52,715 | 22.4% | 7.7% |
| 26 | Madisonville | 26.00 | 19,515 | $53,860 | 23.3% | 6.9% |
| 27 | Richmond | 26.50 | 37,111 | $50,870 | 19.5% | 6.7% |
| 28 | Princeton | 30.00 | 6,241 | $47,411 | 15.8% | 4.5% |
| 29 | Highland Heights | 30.00 | 6,444 | $53,275 | 19.9% | 3.0% |
| 30 | Frankfort | 31.00 | 28,503 | $53,073 | 19.1% | 7.8% |
| 31 | Danville | 32.50 | 17,327 | $52,646 | 17.4% | 6.6% |
| 32 | Harrodsburg | 34.00 | 9,313 | $48,381 | 14.5% | 6.1% |
| 33 | Owensboro | 35.00 | 60,302 | $56,357 | 18.9% | 5.3% |
| 34 | Winchester | 35.50 | 19,213 | $54,378 | 17.3% | 3.6% |
| 35 | Covington | 35.50 | 41,110 | $61,166 | 20.8% | 5.7% |
| 36 | Newport | 35.50 | 13,967 | $60,853 | 20.8% | 7.2% |
| 37 | Shively | 36.00 | 15,638 | $50,221 | 14.7% | 6.9% |
| 38 | Flatwoods | 38.00 | 7,269 | $59,972 | 18.4% | 6.4% |
| 39 | Berea | 38.00 | 15,786 | $59,495 | 17.9% | 4.2% |
| 40 | Mount Sterling | 38.50 | 7,551 | $55,827 | 16.9% | 3.7% |
| 41 | Paris | 38.50 | 10,160 | $55,839 | 16.9% | 3.6% |
| 42 | Franklin | 39.00 | 10,360 | $59,052 | 17.1% | 6.2% |
| 43 | Bardstown | 39.00 | 13,804 | $51,381 | 14.7% | 4.0% |
| 44 | Shepherdsville | 40.50 | 14,533 | $71,476 | 21.5% | 4.2% |
| 45 | Radcliff | 41.00 | 22,864 | $58,559 | 15.9% | 9.3% |
| 46 | Elizabethtown | 41.50 | 32,576 | $60,760 | 17.0% | 5.2% |
| 47 | Versailles | 44.50 | 10,492 | $62,368 | 16.4% | 3.0% |
| 48 | Elsmere | 45.00 | 9,205 | $60,503 | 15.6% | 5.1% |
| 49 | Dayton | 46.50 | 5,743 | $65,992 | 15.9% | 5.0% |
| 50 | Louisville/Jefferson County metro government (balance) | 48.00 | 631,818 | $66,849 | 15.8% | 5.5% |
| 51 | Lexington-Fayette urban county | 51.00 | 323,725 | $69,479 | 14.9% | 4.9% |
| 52 | Nicholasville | 53.50 | 32,197 | $68,503 | 13.1% | 3.6% |
| 53 | Lawrenceburg | 54.00 | 11,943 | $66,486 | 12.0% | 1.8% |
| 54 | Hillview | 56.00 | 8,797 | $68,111 | 11.2% | 3.8% |
| 55 | Shelbyville | 56.00 | 17,668 | $75,610 | 14.5% | 3.5% |
| 56 | Lyndon | 56.50 | 11,030 | $65,679 | 9.2% | 4.6% |
| 57 | Erlanger | 57.00 | 19,875 | $75,840 | 13.7% | 4.3% |
| 58 | Bellevue | 57.50 | 5,636 | $71,166 | 11.4% | 2.2% |
| 59 | Wilmore | 59.00 | 6,057 | $77,665 | 12.5% | 2.5% |
| 60 | Walton | 59.00 | 5,730 | $77,917 | 13.0% | 3.2% |
| 61 | Florence | 59.50 | 32,803 | $71,003 | 9.5% | 3.1% |
| 62 | Vine Grove | 59.50 | 6,830 | $72,560 | 11.1% | 3.5% |
| 63 | Cold Spring | 61.00 | 6,341 | $75,000 | 9.9% | 2.0% |
| 64 | Georgetown | 61.00 | 39,117 | $80,088 | 12.1% | 4.2% |
| 65 | Taylor Mill | 66.50 | 6,937 | $88,546 | 10.9% | 2.1% |
| 66 | Middletown | 67.00 | 9,763 | $82,537 | 9.1% | 4.7% |
| 67 | Douglass Hills | 69.00 | 5,474 | $78,482 | 6.4% | 8.3% |
| 68 | Fort Mitchell | 69.00 | 8,713 | $86,310 | 8.1% | 2.4% |
| 69 | Jeffersontown | 69.50 | 29,199 | $81,506 | 6.5% | 2.8% |
| 70 | St. Matthews | 69.50 | 17,577 | $82,412 | 7.2% | 3.8% |
| 71 | La Grange | 70.00 | 10,311 | $88,464 | 8.0% | 4.2% |
| 72 | Independence | 70.50 | 29,392 | $102,361 | 8.8% | 4.3% |
| 73 | Alexandria | 72.00 | 10,562 | $102,239 | 7.7% | 3.2% |
| 74 | Crestwood | 73.00 | 6,356 | $108,046 | 8.1% | 2.7% |
| 75 | Mount Washington | 74.00 | 18,480 | $96,239 | 5.3% | 4.6% |
| 76 | Fort Thomas | 75.00 | 17,169 | $104,350 | 6.1% | 3.5% |
| 77 | Fort Wright | 77.50 | 5,887 | $105,024 | 3.0% | 3.4% |
| 78 | Villa Hills | 77.50 | 7,480 | $107,859 | 3.7% | 3.6% |
| 79 | Edgewood | 78.00 | 8,447 | $119,028 | 3.8% | 2.4% |
| 80 | Union | 80.00 | 7,642 | $136,712 | 2.9% | 1.5% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. 80 cities with more than 5,000 residents.
Summary
The poorest cities in Kentucky for 2026
Like we said earlier, when we set out to identify the poorest places in Kentucky, we weren’t sure what we’d encounter, but it ended up being some of the best places to live in Kentucky.
When you look at the data, the cities and places mentioned above meet the criteria for being at the very bottom of the income ladder for everyone that lives there. Not sold on Kentucky? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
