Pine Bluff Ranked Third Poorest City In U.S.

Forbes magazine ranks the city as the third poorest in the country and residents say it only takes a drive through the city to see that it's not thriving. Unemployment, crime and poverty have long been the town's main problems. After living there for 28 years, Samantha Carroll is not surprised Pine Bluff made it to the top of the list.

"I wish it'd be better," said Carroll "This is home, you know, this is where all my family is."

Jessie Turner works in the community to help reduce crime. He believes with a stronger investment from Pine Bluff's two higher education institutions, the poverty cycle could be broken.

"We got a lot of work to do," Turner said. "The lack of education is the root cause of all of this. Where there is no education, then you're going to have high crime; you're going to have the poverty."

Pine Bluff is one of four southern cities that made the Forbes magazine list, but the only one in Arkansas. With a population of nearly 55,000, the per capita income there is between $18,000 and $23, 000 a year.

The Forbes list adds that, like the other three southern cities, the bottom 20 percent of those in Pine Bluff only bring in $8,500 a year.

Second-term mayor Carl Redus, Jr. says he's been working to revamp the city's infrastructure and using already available resources to turn the city around. He believes a comprehensive approach which includes education and economic development will help the city, but he's not sure how much more can be done without a hand from state and national leaders.

"This is a challenge that we are going to use to say, 'Look, what are you going to do to help us to overcome the problem, the challenges that have been identified here?'" said Mayor Redus. "We want to be a better community."

The list is based on numbers from the 2008 census. Click here to read the full list from Forbes.