Census Bureau: Majority of Affluent Counties In Northeast US 285
An anonymous reader writes "I'm not a big fan of heat maps, but the US Census Bureau has just released a set of maps that succinctly capture average income distribution across the US. BusinessInsider points out that well over half of the most affluent counties in the US are concentrated in the Northeast (counting Virginia, presumably for the suburbs of Washington, D.C. located in that southern state). Of course, the cost of living is higher in those counties as well. Meanwhile, poor counties tend to be clustered in the southeast and in southwestern states on the Mexican border. There is good news for the northern prarie states, though, particularly North and South Dakota, as they lead in the number of counties with gains in household income over the past five years."
Re:red v blue (Score:0, Informative)
BS.... Schools receive plenty of federal funding... Look at Chicago Illinois, one of the worst school records in the US and the last time I look the majority of citizens were pretty damn poor (Democrat voters too).. Teachers avg salary? WAY above the national average.
Get a clue sheeple.
Re:Speaking as a non-American (Score:2, Informative)
It's as if it was named after someone [wikipedia.org]....
The Bakken Oil Patch Is the Plains Income Source (Score:5, Informative)
Sadly, the oil will be extracted, the land will be poisoned, and the workers will leave for another boom and/or gold rush elsewhere, so the counties will be no better off unless they tax the oil extraction effort now.
Re: red v blue (Score:2, Informative)
You would rather vote for some one who would lie to you about their Intention's?
The first thing republicans do in office isn't to make a smaller government. It is to force Christian values on everyone. Usually in government run and paid for systems.
Re:The Bakken Oil Patch Is the Plains Income Sourc (Score:3, Informative)
"so the counties will be no better off unless they tax the oil extraction effort now."
And they don't really. The area of Dickinson already went through an oil boom in the late 70s early 80s.
They didn't learn from their mistakes. Most of the area around Villard and to the west was a testament to what happens when you think the money will never stop flowing.
Re:red v blue (Score:2, Informative)
You are not making the right distinctions, in some sense the gp wasn't either. The Tea Party is not the old right wing of the Republican Party in the sense of Reagan. The Tea Party is essentially composed of libertarians who really do want less government including the TSA, the military, no EPA, no OSHA, no federal money for schools, etc. The older right wing of the Republican Party believes in a strong TSA, a strong military, no EPA, no OSHA, no federal money for schools, etc. The Republicans in general in the country are probably somewhere in between...at least until the terrorists acquire real weapons (chem, an odd nuke or two). The current debate over NSA and its reach is also only applicable up until the terrorists get those weapons, then there won't be that much opposition from the Libertarians except the die head Paul supporters.
Re:red v blue (Score:2, Informative)
There is another dynamic at work as well.
One should also consider the split personality of what we call "conservative". Many Americans consider themselves conservative because they believe in traditional and family values, and the left has made a huge assault on those values. Many Americans consider themselves conservative because they have libertarian leanings, and the left has made a huge assault on freedom (freedom of sex being their own exception - they seem to hold that one freedom sacred). Some Americans consider themselves conservative because they think that means helping big business against corrupt unions and corrupt government, and the left likes to make big businesses out to be bogeymen and government and unions to be saints.
As the left has largely (though not totally) succeeded in pushing so much of their agenda of the last 70 years (with the obvious exception of unions), they have pushed together diverse groups in to the "conservative" camp.
The group that supports traditional and family values includes a lot of lower middle class because those values are values that help the less capable succeed. It's been pointed out many times that if you graduate from high school, avoid getting pregnant while a teen-ager, avoid getting pregnant until you get married, and stay off drugs and alcohol, you have a very high chance of avoiding poverty in America. This is true even if you have lower-than-average intelligence or aren't a great athlete. It's true even if you don't necessarily understand the reasons for the values you're living by. If you believe in marriage, if you believe in respecting your elders and listen to them when they tell you not to try drugs or alcohol. If you get a job like your parents say you should and work hard at it simply because it is the right thing to do. For many people, this is what their religion tells them to do so they do it regardless of whether they understand the secular benefits.
That's why, absent welfare, WF Buckley was right to say that conservatives aren't stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. Unless the government is there to bail them out, stupid liberals tend to remove themselves from the gene pool, or they figure out that they need to become conservatives.
That's why so many of the less wealthy conservatives are proud of their self-sufficiency and don't want to support programs for the poor. They earned their survival - not by being smart or gifted or lucky or born in to rich families - but by living their values and working hard. They don't see why others can't do the same and they don't want their hard-earned money going to people who don't follow the same values. They're barely scraping by and the last thing they need is for the government to interfere and drag them down.