Friday, June 22, 2012

Republicans lead the poorest states


Here's a breakdown of per capita income in the 50 states. National per capita income is $42,070.

As you can see the majority of the states below the national average have two Republican senators (red line). A purple line means one Republican and one Democrat and a blue line means two Democratic senators. The wealthier states are Democratic.
















What about governors?

Well, in the 25 states with per capita income above the national average, 12 (48%) of those states had Republican governors.

However, when you look at the 25 states below the national average, 18 (72%) had Republicans.

7 comments:

mike norman said...

This is pretty damning for the Repubs.

paul meli said...

The trouble is the Democrats are becoming more and more like Republicans every day.

And the Republicans are becoming…

widmerpool said...

I'd like to see the breakdown of how much money is REDISTRIBUTED from wealthy blue states to poor red states.

paul meli said...

@widmerpool

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s82/sh/b9b7f05b-f8cc-4950-a3c8-d51716f64fc7/536776c89860042476a5a4ea4525d0a9

mike norman said...

@widmerpool:

You'd be astonished. The poor states (mostly Southern) are net recipients of transfer payments from the Federal Gov't. The richer states pay more to the Feds than they get back. How do you think states like South Carolina, Alabama, etc have the money to givce HUGE tax incentives to companies like Honday, BMW, Toyota, Volkswagon, etc? That's why it was such a sham when Southern Senators were railing against the GM bailout. They cry of, "We're subsidizing workers in Detroit," was exactly the opposite. It was the people of Detroit subsidizing the Alabamians.

bbjaylive said...

Not sure what this graph is really supposed to prove. I'm betting that the poorer states are cheaper to live in and thus their citizens have similar purchasing power to those in the richer blue states on average.

Tom Hickey said...

Not sure what this graph is really supposed to prove. I'm betting that the poorer states are cheaper to live in and thus their citizens have similar purchasing power to those in the richer blue states on average.

The differential is largely due to difference in land rent. Land rent rises enormously in highly productive areas, influencing rents on commercial RE, hence fixed cost, hence margins, hence price, hence wages demanded.