Asking "What datasets are available to me?" is sometimes the wrong question. A better way of going about the problem is asking something more specific like "How can I create a heat-map of U.S poverty?" The reason why the latter is better is that it not only focuses your attention on something do-able but it actually teaches you more about data analysis than just searching for datasets.

For example, to solve the question above you are going to be asking yourself the following followup questions:

1) Where do I get a map of the U.S?

2) How do I make a heat-map?

3) How do I feed in my own data into this heat map?

4) What colors do I use?

5) Can I do this real-time? Do I need a database? What language do I use?

6) Whats a FIPS code?

7) How do I find a poverty dataset with FIPS codes?

8) This poverty dataset doesn't have FIPS codes, but I can join it with this other dataset that does have FIPS codes.