§1392 Eligibility criteria

Summary

To be picked, a nominated area must meet several clear rules about size, poverty, and borders. For population, an urban area can have at most the smaller of 200,000 people or the bigger of 50,000 people or 10 percent of the population of the largest city in the area. A rural area can have at most 30,000 people. The area must show widespread poverty, joblessness, and general hardship. Size limits are 20 square miles for urban and 1,000 square miles for rural. Boundaries must be continuous, or for most places there can be up to 3 separate pieces (but rural areas that cross more than one State are different). The area must lie entirely inside no more than 2 adjoining States for urban areas and no more than 3 adjoining States for rural areas. The area cannot include part of a central business district unless every census tract in that district has a poverty rate of at least 35 percent (30 percent if applying as an enterprise community). Poverty tests require each census tract in the area to have at least a 20 percent poverty rate, at least 90 percent of tracts to have 25 percent or more, and at least 50 percent of tracts to have 35 percent or more. Empty tracts and very small tracts have special treatments, and the Secretary may lower one of those percent thresholds by 5 percentage points for up to 10 percent of the tracts (or, if fewer, up to 5 tracts). Separate noncontiguous pieces must meet the poverty rules on their own. If an area has no census tracts, equivalent county divisions are used. The Secretary selects which eligible areas become empowerment zones or enterprise communities based on the strength of their strategic plan and other criteria. Alaska and Hawaii areas can instead qualify if every tract or block group has 20 percent or more of families with income at or below 50 percent of the statewide median family income.