San Antonio Food Bank workers hand out consumables during a distribution event. Credit: Courtesy Photo / San Antonio Food Bank
San Antonio has reclaimed a dubious distinction. Once again, the it’s been named the most-impoverished large metro area in the United States, according to new U.S Census Bureau data.

The Alamo City reclaimed the title from Miami, which held it in 2020.

On average, 14.2% of the San Antonio-New Braunfels area’s residents lived in poverty from 2016-2020, the highest percentage in the country’s 25 most-populous metros. That means some 350,000 people in the San Antonio area lived under the poverty threshold of $26,500 for a family of four last year.

The San Antonio metro’s poverty rate shrank by about 1.9% during that same time. But that decline is well behind that of other big metro areas, which averaged a drop of 3.5% over the past four years, according to the Census Bureau.

Unfortunately, with 15 schools within the San Antonio Independent School District receiving an “F” rating from the state, and wage growth lagging behind innovation hubs such as Austin, the Alamo City doesn’t appear to be making significant headway in breaking its cycle of generational poverty.

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This article appears in Mar 9-22, 2022.

Michael Karlis is a Staff Writer at the San Antonio Current. He is a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., whose work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Orlando...