 About 11.8% of families and 20.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 33.1% of those under age 18 and 14.7% of those age 65 or over.Alexander County is unique among antebellum free state rural counties in having a postbellum political history largely determined by a previously disfranchised black electorate.It is most similar in this respect to – though still substantially different from – some counties of the south and the Eastern Shore of Maryland.