Yesterday, I generated the above map of poverty using TIGER shapefiles and data from the 2010 American Community Survey 1 Year Estimate.  This map demonstrates the unequal geographic distribution of poverty in the United States. Most notably, there is a sharp contrast between the relatively low percentages of the northern states and the higher percentages of southern states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. According to the data, Mississippi (18.9%) has the highest percentage of its population living below the poverty level while New Hampshire (7.8%) has the lowest.

Here is a shot of the data I acquired from the American Fact Finder:

Although ACS estimates can be useful in identifying patterns, they can also have a large margins of error, so it should be understood that the data is limited in its capabilities.