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Do you realize how many retitrees are fleeing the northeast blue states every year for states like Florida who do not have an income tax and have relatively low property taxes??
The reason they're able to do this is because they've earned the high incomes in NJ/NY/MA/CT for years and probably have a substantial amount of equity in their home by retirement. Many times the equity alone would be enough to cover a reasonable retirement place in FL, TN, SC, or other "cheap" state.
The northeast blue states, with rare exception, still have the highest paying jobs, best schools, and best social metrics of most anywhere else in the country.
People constantly relocate to NJ/MA/NY/CT for jobs, great schools, etc, but I'd say very few relocate to Alabama or Louisiana for that awesome job and top quality schools. Cheap comes with consequences.
Reality check. This is about income inequality. Utah is the most equal state. The top 3 are all red. 4 of the 5 states with the most inequality are blue. That is a fact.
Reality check. This is about income inequality. Utah is the most equal state. The top 3 are all red. 4 of the 5 states with the most inequality are blue. That is a fact.
Heh, the liberal sniveling is wonderful.
But, but its got to be the fault of Microsoft, yeah that's it. It pumps millions in revenue to the state but they don't count.
Interesting, Utah has the least income inequality of all the states and a minimum wage of $7.25. Washington has the highest minimum wage and has much more income inequality sitting around the middle. HMMMMMMM interesting.
More interesting, the top 3 states with the least income inequality are all red states. 6 of the top 10 most equal are red states. 4 of the 5 states with the most inequality are blue.
Just goes to show that Democrat economic policies are based on nothing more than talking points and making victims out of everyone to score votes. They like to talk about how worried they are about income inequality, but once again, when it comes to governing, they fail.
Gini coefficient is a useful indicator, but unfortunately everything has become all about red vs. blue that people cannot see the obvious. Almost all the states with a low gini coefficient tend to have lower populations and/or be more rural then the the states with a high Gini coefficient. I would suggest that cities by their nature tend to attract a lot of very wealthy as well as a lot of poor people. This is opposed to more rural or less densely populated areas which tend to be more uniform. I would say this rather then Red state Blue state is an indicator, but some people don't like to look at things beyond a Republican/Democrat framework.
Well, I think these Gini comparisons are very valuable, yet the data need to be compare apples with apples.
I think these findings reflect a lot of demographic and cultural patterns more so than political ideology.
Here, it seem to me that we are comparing states with large urban areas and corporate headquarters (California, Texas, New York, Washington), which have very high earners and urban poor with more rural and less stratified states. A critique of the former could be made, but it is a critique of the 20th Century economy industrialization, urbanization,etc.), not a single party.
Utah is pretty interesting though, because it has some good corporate centers, but still has a decent middle class. I think that has to do with the work ethic and cohesion of the Mormon culture. I like the Mormons (not their religions, but its behavioral outcomes). They are hardworking and look after each other. The latter is the polar opposite would be the Deep South, where whites and blacks see themselves as different communities entirely. Both are deeply conservative, but have gini opposite patterns.
If the dig on liberals is that they are hypocritical, I think that is often true (look at Californa, with Silicon Valley sending its smog to the poor hispanic communities in the San Joaquin Valley; but then conservative Texas is no better). Rich liberals are rich first, liberals second. But they tend to aggregate in urban environments, where income stratification is intensified. These are the same phonies who will say the schools are failing, when they really mean they don't want their kids in schools with blacks and hispanics. Even so, I think the issues of income inequality in complex, huge cities are not easily solved, or laid at the feet of a single party.
Again apples vs. apples. Some more interesting comparisons would be to compare liberal cities (San Francisco, Boston, Minneapolis, Chicago, etc. with conservative cities of comparable size, like Dallas, Houston, Salt Lake City, Boise, Atlanta, etc.), and to compare conservative agrarian states with moderate or liberal ones (e.g., Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma vs. Iowa, Vermont, Oregon). Throwing them all in the same pot and drawing conclusions seem to me to create a very weak analysis.
The Utah data are really the only informative conclusion I see. There is something to learn from that state.
Utah is pretty interesting though, because it has some good corporate centers, but still has a decent middle class. I think that has to do with the work ethic and cohesion of the Mormon culture. I like the Mormons (not their religions, but its behavioral outcomes). They are hardworking and look after each other. The latter is the polar opposite would be the Deep South, where whites and blacks see themselves as different communities entirely. Both are deeply conservative, but have gini opposite patterns.
Utah has also taken some steps, in the interest of saving money, that are far more, imho, left wing then any blue state has when it comes to ending homelessness.
I would suspect the fact that Utah is on the verge of ending homelessness in this way is a contributor to their Gini coefficient.
Also lets be clear what Gini coefficient measures, it measures income inequality not necessarily economic health. Thus why arguably the most dismal country on the planet, Niger, has a lower gini coefficient then the US, everyone there is equally poor.
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