your point being?

That it’s ridiculous to say “poorer than anywhere in Europe or even the US Deep South”. The poorest parts of Europe are so much more impoverished than anywhere in the Deep South that that is an absurd statement.

It’s a skewed European attitude to look down on the southern US as the poorest place they can think of outside of Africa or Asia. When in fact the vast majority of the South is better off than economically than 90% of European countries.

I once talked to someone traveling to Atlanta ask “do you get CNN down there?” CNN is based in Atlanta.