§1392 Eligibility Criteria

Summary

To be chosen as an empowerment zone or enterprise community, an area must meet rules about population, poverty, size, and economic distress. The area must be clearly a place with widespread poverty, unemployment, and general hardship. For population, an urban area cannot exceed the smaller of 200,000 people or the larger of 50,000 people or 10% of the population of the most populous city inside the area. A rural area cannot have more than 30,000 people. For size, an urban area may be no more than 20 square miles and a rural area no more than 1,000 square miles. The boundary must be continuous or, unless a rural area spans more than one State, split into no more than three separate pieces. An urban area may lie in at most 2 contiguous States; a rural area may lie in at most 3 contiguous States. No part of a central business district may be included unless every census tract in that district has a poverty rate of at least 35% (30% for an enterprise community). The poverty rules are strict: every census tract in the area must have at least a 20% poverty rate; at least 90% of the tracts must have 25% or more; and at least 50% must have 35% or more. Empty tracts count as meeting the 20% and 25% tests but count as zero for the 35% test. Tracts with fewer than 2,000 people meet the 20% and 25% tests if over 75% is zoned commercial or industrial. For enterprise communities only, the Secretary may lower one of the three poverty thresholds by 5 percentage points for up to 10% of the tracts (or up to 5 tracts), or may instead lower the 35% test by 10 points for up to 3 tracts. Each separate parcel must meet the poverty tests on its own. If census tracts don’t exist, equivalent county divisions are used. The Secretary will pick among eligible areas based on how good their strategic plan is and other criteria the Secretary sets. In Alaska or Hawaii, an area qualifies under the distress, size, and poverty rules if every tract or block group has at least 20% of families with income at 50% or less of the statewide median family income.