Cleveland’s poverty rate fell to 24.1% in 2025, its lowest mark in more than four decades and the first time since the 1980s that fewer than a quarter of residents lived below the poverty line. The one-year decline from 28.3% in 2024 was not shared across racial and ethnic groups: Asian residents’ reported rate rose, even as the citywide figure fell.
A Four-Decade Low, But Not For Everyone
The figures come from an analysis by the Center for Community Solutions, using the latest available U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data. The survey collects economic, housing and other information from sampled households across the 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, according to Signal Cleveland. Researcher Emily Campbell said the overall decline reflects more residents earning family-sustaining wages or wages above poverty. More than 85,000 of Cleveland’s 353,400 residents still had household incomes below the poverty threshold, which was $32,649 for a family of four, the outlet reported.
The group-level figures show sharply different outcomes. White Clevelanders’ poverty rate fell 32.6% from 2024 to 2025, to 10.5%, the largest decline among the groups examined. The Black rate dropped about 17%, to 28.2%, while the Hispanic/Latino rate was essentially unchanged at 32.6%. The Asian rate moved in the opposite direction, rising about 10% to 44.7%, according to the Center’s analysis.
Cleveland Still Near The Top Of A Grim National List
Cleveland’s 24.1% overall rate was more than twice the 2025 national rate of 11.8%. The Center’s analysis ranked Cleveland second among large U.S. cities for overall poverty and for Black poverty, behind Detroit in both comparisons. Cleveland also ranked among the 10 large cities with the highest Asian and Hispanic/Latino poverty rates. Campbell said Cleveland has had the highest Asian poverty rate among large U.S. cities since at least 2021.
Asian residents make up under 3% of Cleveland’s population, while Hispanic residents account for about 13%, according to Census figures cited in the report. Campbell said an influx of non-poor white residents does not appear to explain the improved citywide figures. She also pointed to racism as a contributor to the poverty gap between white residents and Asian, Black and Hispanic residents, and said closing that gap will require sustained improvement over several years to address longstanding challenges.
Community Leaders React To The Numbers
Harry Kamdar told Signal Cleveland that language barriers and insufficient state investment limit socioeconomic stability and opportunities to leave poverty for Ohio’s Asian population. He called for a statewide commission focused on Asian poverty. Asian Services In Action, which serves Cleveland and Akron, has also highlighted the issue. Kamdar said Cincinnati appeared on a top-10 list of large cities with the highest Asian poverty rates.
In an email to Signal Cleveland, José C. Feliciano Sr. called the findings alarming and said language barriers can restrict educational opportunities, employment, access to essential services and the information families need to improve their economic circumstances. He said the Hispanic Roundtable is strengthening its commitment to addressing disparities affecting the Hispanic community and Cleveland.
Tyler Sinclair told Signal Cleveland that decades of disinvestment in minority neighborhoods contributed to Cleveland’s high poverty rates and that reversing them will take time and a multifaceted approach. He said the Justin Bibb administration has focused on generational poverty through affordable housing, workforce development, neighborhood investment, economic opportunities, education access and health care for low-income families. The Site Readiness for Good Jobs Fund separately aims to bring 25,000 good-paying jobs to Cleveland by revitalizing vacant or underused industrial land, much of it in mostly Black neighborhoods on the city’s east side.
Cleveland’s 2025 figure follows a decade in which the city’s poverty rate topped 36% in 2015, according to U.S. Census figures. Child poverty also fell in the latest annual figures, from 45.7% in Cleveland in 2024 to 36.1% in 2025. Detroit, by comparison, saw its child poverty rate reach its lowest point in at least two decades, according to the Detroit News.
How to read the estimates—and where residents can seek support
A separate comparison using five-year American Community Survey estimates found Cleveland’s poverty rate declined significantly from 32.7% in 2019 to 30.6% in 2024, according to the Center for Community Solutions. Those multi-year estimates differ from the annual 2025 figure above. The broad Asian category also encompasses distinct communities: in 2021 five-year Census estimates, Chinese residents made up 0.8% of Cleveland’s population, followed by Other Asian residents at 0.6% and Indian residents at 0.5%, according to cleveland.com. For residents facing language barriers, Cuyahoga County says its Welcome Center serves immigrants, refugees and people with limited English proficiency. The county’s Health and Human Services department says the center connects people with language services, public benefits, education, workforce support, housing and legal services.
