The story flips if you use the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which adjusts for cost of living: https://www.irp.wisc.edu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Focus.... Rural poverty has consistently been similar to urban poverty, and was measurably lower during the great recession. Rural areas also have lower long-term poverty (where a family was poor for two successive measurement years). About 4% in 2016 for rural areas, versus 5.5% in urban areas.

The states with the lowest SPM poverty rates are midwestern states with large rural populations, like Iowa and Nebraska: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ.... (California's poverty rate is almost double those states'.)