In 2008, it was determined thatKiryasJoel, a village within the town of Monroe in Orange County, had the highest poverty rate in the USA, with five-eighths of the residents living below the federal poverty line. It also has the largest percentage of residents receiving food stamps—more than 40%.
In the year 2000 there were 13,138 people living in the village. It is largely a Yiddish community, with over 89% of the community speaking Yiddish at home and 2.3% speaking Hebrew.
Residents of Kiryas Joel, like those of other Haredi Jewish communities, typically have large families. "There are three religious tenets that drive our growth: Our women don't use birth control, they get married young and after they get married, they stay in Kiryas Joel and start a family," said the village administrator, Gedalye Szegedin.
The average income of a family in this village is $15,372. The per capita income (at the time of the 2000 census) was $4,355. 62.2% of the population in the village live under the poverty line.
Despite these statistics, there are no slums and not a single homeless person in the village. Nobody goes hungry and everybody is neatly dressed. Crime is also almost non-existent in Kiryas Joel.
