Posted on 04/04/2010 2:13:08 PM PDT by neverhome
...When the data is sorted according to what percentage lives below the poverty level, there is an obvious link to the percentage of those who completed high school. The best 10 states in this list are topped by New Hampshire, with 90.5% of the people completing high school, and only 7.6% living in poverty. The highest "poverty percentage" was 10%.
The bottom 10 contain the only two states with less than 80% of the population finishing high school. Texas comes in at 79.2% and Mississippi at 78.8%. No surprise that Mississippi has the worst percentage in this category and the highest percentage of people living in poverty at 21%. The best poverty percentage of the bottom ten is Tennessee at 15.7%.
If we sort the data by unemployment figures, we discover that the best 10 states had rates ranging from 3.2% to 4.6%. Only one of the states had a high school completion percentage below 85%.
The bottom 10 are a bit of a mish-mash of conflicting numbers. Alaska, for example, had only 9.5% below the poverty line and 90.6% finished high school which outranks most in the top 10. Nevertheless, Alaska also had 7.7% unemployment.
Michigan had the highest unemployment in this period at 9.5%, but also had one of the higher percentages of high school completion. This one is easy to figure out, given the state of affairs with the auto industry...
(Excerpt) Read more at alanburkhart.com ...
Great job!
I think one other thing to consider in this “poverty level”, is that I understand it’s expressed a below a certain income level, but does not take into account the relationship between income and cost of necessities.
E.g. a person makeing $20K in Alabama or Kentucky, pays say $300 rent, plenty left for food, etc; while a person making $20K in say Los Angeles, has to pay $700 for rent, not leaving much for other things.
I could be wrong about the above, and please correct me, if I am wrong.
But if it’s true, as I think it is, poverty level should be expressed in different $ amounts for different states, and defined as lelow a leve that people can rent a one bedroom apartment and feed the family.
My question is why use 2008 statistics?
The trainwreck began in mid 2009 and hit the wall after Obozo was coronated.
There is no pattern for what we are facing, we are in totally uncharted waters now. Commie/Fascist/Marxists cannot run a nation. Fails every time.
“Poverty Level” is a political term, used to provide ammunition for things that liberals want to do. My county has an average income level of about $24,000. However, that’s just the income that they report. Many make at least that amount in unreported income. They deal in cash and barter, ensuring that there is no paper trail. Call a local contractor and ask them to do some small job for you. Notice how fast they show up when you mention that you will be paying cash.
Unemployed? THANK A DEMOCRAT
(ps to unwashed masses, obama is a democrat)
The only thing that I think is missing is what percentage of those living under poverty are in rural areas vs cities.
Many people that live in rural communities and live under the poverty level might be OK. Since the rural communities utilities taxes etc are lower than the cities.
“My question is why use 2008 statistics?”
That was the most recent *complete* information available. And the focus wasn’t so much on Obama specifically as on how a particular party might affect a given state. There wasn’t really much of a trend either way where political majorities were concerned. The most noticeable trend was poverty and education levels.
“I could be wrong about the above, and please correct me, if I am wrong.”
Poverty levels are assesed state by state. And you’re right, it varies wildly. I live in Missippi. I have a good friend in Sherman Oaks, CA. My entire monthly debt load excepting food is less than the rent on his apartment (this PO’s him highly). And I’m making a house payment. It’s just insane. I live quite well on a salary that’s below the poverty level in most other states.
“The only thing that I think is missing is what percentage of those living under poverty are in rural areas vs cities.”
That’s a good point. I might redo the table and add that in. I also intend to freeze the top row so the column headers are always visible when you scroll down. Probably do it with Flash instead of HTML. Thanks for the idea!
The House counts make no sense. Texas 5-4 democrat? I’m not sure what you’re counting, the house seats would have been 19-13 Republican in that era.
The numbers on Alaska are a bit off.
Over the last 5 years, schools have only graduated last than 62% - you have to pass a State mandated test to get a diploma - otherwise, you ‘attend’ for 4 years. A large number of students, growing every year, will ‘drop out’ get their GED and go to college, where the state will pick up some of the tab.
Unemployment figures vary wildly by region - keep in mind Alaska is over twice the size of Tx. More than half of people that work, work for the Government.
For an extensive set of numbers, see
http://www.commerce.state.ak.us/oed/pub/AEPR_2007_Final.pdf
which is the latest ‘Offical” pub. It does not reflect the sharp rise in unemployment in the oil patch over the last two years.
Povery figures are also subject to too much ‘latitude’ - a family of 4 can recieve welfare benifits with an income approching 48K year, for example. Most Alaska parcipitation in welface programs is at 200% to 400% of L48 income levels. It is expensive to live here, even more expensive to be ‘working poor’.
“The House counts make no sense. Texas 5-4 democrat?”
Thank you! That was a error on my part. It’s been fixed. :-)
“The numbers on Alaska are a bit off.”
I used the data from a single source for the sake of consistency. It would be a heckuva chore to use individual sources for each state, given that I’m doing this by myself. I will however, check out your link. Thanks!
The SoA pages are detail rich, but not timely - the “newest” data is almost 3 years old.
“E.g. a person makeing $20K in Alabama or Kentucky, pays say $300 rent, plenty left for food, etc; while a person making $20K in say Los Angeles, has to pay $700 for rent, ...”
-
Try twice that.
And home prices have started back up.
Not sure how.
For most of the rest of the state, though, it does not cost much to live, but heat bills may change that if Obama gets cap and trade through.
“The SoA pages are detail rich, but not timely - the “newest” data is almost 3 years old.”
I know it’s older data, but the goal was to look for trends, and this was the latest *complete* data I could lay hands on without spending a month or two digging for it. The trends themselves will not have changed so much between now and when the data was current.
In Alaska, investment is down, unemployment is up and if you noticed, we had a “net growth” of -1700 folks.
If, however, your business is with the Stste Government, then busienss is good....
Good luck with your efforts, finding any kind of accurate data on the current ecomonic picture is darned hard, so good luck my FRiend, and keep up the good fight.
The States who have high school completion and also high unemployment rates also have Democrats running the state.
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