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Census Bureau: Majority of Affluent Counties In Northeast US
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."
I'm not from the US, so I never understood why poor people vote conservative?
They don't. In each state, the poorer people are more likely to vote Democrat, the richer people are more likely to vote Republican.
However, richer states are more likely to vote Democrat, and poorer states are more likely to vote Republican.
So perhaps the question should be posed the other way: if your state votes Republican, why is it poorer?
Seriously, though, I graduated from a public high school in Morris County. (This is Slashdot, so I'm guessing at what TFA says rather than reading it, but I bet Morris County, NJ is on this list.) The public schools were set up to defend the New Jersey Education Association. You give 90% of the teachers I had in high school half a chance, and they'd shoehorn pro-teachers' union propaganda into whatever they were supposed to be teaching us.
On issues of politics (civics and history classes, but also tangentially related classes like English, which was taught by the head of the union), expressing any opinion other than the approved doctrinal opinion of the teacher would get you shouted down.
A few years ago, I was going to donate money to a candidate who wanted to take a harder line in the upcoming negotiations with the NJEA
I live and work in Morris County today, but my wife and I are going to move before we have kids, because there's no way I would send my kids through that.
It's simple, really.
They believe more in personal responsibility than shared responsibility. I live in the South, and the overwhelming majority of people I know would rather work hard for what they earn than take it from someone else without working for it. They believe that you must earn what you have, rather than simply be given it. And, they are okay with the fact that they don't have as much as others. They are happy with what they have.
I've lived in ultra-liberal and ultra-conservative parts of the country, and everywhere in between. The liberals I know are miserable. They can never be happy with what they have - they always see the grass being always greener elsewhere. They are also overwhelmingly underachievers with expectations that their slack will be taken up by "someone else."
Also, you have to take the data with a grain of salt. I live in a "poor" area by national standards - the median individual income in my city is approximately $30,000. However, the median home price is only about 2.5x. You can buy a "nice" home for $120-140k. My wife and I recently purchased a 2000 square foot home on 2 acres for $140k.
So, it's important not to confuse "poor" with "behind in the inflation race."
As far as my personal beliefs, I would rather shovel shit for minimum wage that reach into your wallet and steal your money. That is wrong, and I won't do it. So, it's not about voting in my own self interest, it is about voting for what is right.