Income inequality

An interesting new study has come out. Congressional districts with the highest income inequality are democratic. This brings to mind the old chicken vs egg question. Are the districts more democratic because of the inequality or are the districts more unequal because they are democratically controlled. Or is the correlation just a coincidence?

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... lican-ones

You have to remember that both parties try to draw congressional district borders to maximize their number of votes while minimizing the other party's. The story specifically mentions that that the strongest demographic groups for the Democrats are low income minorities and highly paid, highly educated whites. So drawing the congressional borders to maximize the chances of a democrat getting elected would end up with a greater income disparity.

The other thing is correlation does not equal causation, here are many correlations that have nothing to do with each other (e.g. the divorce rate in Maine correlates with the per capita consumption of margarine in the US). http://www.tylervigen.com/

biochem wrote:An interesting new study has come out. Congressional districts with the highest income inequality are democratic. This brings to mind the old chicken vs egg question. Are the districts more democratic because of the inequality or are the districts more unequal because they are democratically controlled. Or is the correlation just a coincidence?

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... lican-ones

Donnachaidh wrote:You have to remember that both parties try to draw congressional district borders to maximize their number of votes while minimizing the other party's. The story specifically mentions that that the strongest demographic groups for the Democrats are low income minorities and highly paid, highly educated whites. So drawing the congressional borders to maximize the chances of a democrat getting elected would end up with a greater income disparity.

The other thing is correlation does not equal causation, here are many correlations that have nothing to do with each other (e.g. the divorce rate in Maine correlates with the per capita consumption of margarine in the US). http://www.tylervigen.com/

biochem wrote:An interesting new study has come out. Congressional districts with the highest income inequality are democratic. This brings to mind the old chicken vs egg question. Are the districts more democratic because of the inequality or are the districts more unequal because they are democratically controlled. Or is the correlation just a coincidence?

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... lican-ones

I agree there are all types of correlation vs causation trends. Some are quite humorous. And the authors of the article analyzing the study do dismiss it as coincidence. However, I am not sure that I agree with that dismissal.

Basically there is a situation where the very rich and the very poor are choosing voluntarily to vote for the same political candidates. Both must believe (whether or not the belief is accurate) that the Democrats provide more value. With some exceptions (devout pro-lifers, devout greens, post 9-11 national security concerns etc) economic interests as a general rule tend to dominate people's voting decisions. So the very rich and the very poor must believe (whether or not this belief is accurate) that the democrats have their economic best interests at heart. This would mean that the Democrats are benefiting from income inequality and thus the fact that the most unequal districts are Democratic is not a coincidence.

biochem wrote:I agree their are all types of correlation vs causation trends. Some are quite humorous. And the authors of the article analyzing the study do dismiss it as coincidence. However, I am not sure that I agree with that dismissal.

Basically there is a situation where the very rich and the very poor are choosing voluntarily to vote for the same political candidates. Both must believe (whether or not the belief is accurate) that the Democrats provide more value. With some exceptions (devout pro-lifers, devout greens, post 9-11 national security concerns etc) economic interests as a general rule tend to dominate people's voting decisions. So the very rich and the very poor must believe (whether or not this belief is accurate) that the democrats have their economic best interests at heart. This would mean that the Democrats are benefiting from income inequality and thus the fact that the most unequal districts are Democratic is not a coincidence.

The conclusion is hard to avoid. That doesn't answer the question of causation.

Is the Democrat party appealing to the wealthy in some way that is not inconsistent with policies that are also appealing to the poorest among us? If this is true, the party is taking advantage of what already exists and causing nothing.

On the other hand, is the party implementing policies that either create or magnify this disparity? If this is true, then they are causing or exacerbating the disparity.

I don't know the answer. I do know that so long as they benefit from this disparity, the Democrat party has little incentive to reduce this disparity. That's reason enough for me to avoid voting for them or those that suppoort Democrat policies.

The impression I've always had is that the Democrats appeal to the poor on both the economic level and the social policy level while they appeal to the wealthier people on the social policy level. At this point the public perception of the Republican party is that it is against minorities, especially poor ones. Whether or not there is any truth to that perception isn't a discussion I want to go anywhere near.

PeterZ wrote:

biochem wrote:I agree their are all types of correlation vs causation trends. Some are quite humorous. And the authors of the article analyzing the study do dismiss it as coincidence. However, I am not sure that I agree with that dismissal.

Basically there is a situation where the very rich and the very poor are choosing voluntarily to vote for the same political candidates. Both must believe (whether or not the belief is accurate) that the Democrats provide more value. With some exceptions (devout pro-lifers, devout greens, post 9-11 national security concerns etc) economic interests as a general rule tend to dominate people's voting decisions. So the very rich and the very poor must believe (whether or not this belief is accurate) that the democrats have their economic best interests at heart. This would mean that the Democrats are benefiting from income inequality and thus the fact that the most unequal districts are Democratic is not a coincidence.

The conclusion is hard to avoid. That doesn't answer the question of causation.

Is the Democrat party appealing to the wealthy in some way that is not inconsistent with policies that are also appealing to the poorest among us? If this is true, the party is taking advantage of what already exists and causing nothing.

On the other hand, is the party implementing policies that either create or magnify this disparity? If this is true, then they are causing or exacerbating the disparity.

I don't know the answer. I do know that so long as they benefit from this disparity, the Democrat party has little incentive to reduce this disparity. That's reason enough for me to avoid voting for them or those that suppoort Democrat policies.

Donnachaidh wrote:The impression I've always had is that the Democrats appeal to the poor on both the economic level and the social policy level while they appeal to the wealthier people on the social policy level. At this point the public perception of the Republican party is that it is against minorities, especially poor ones. Whether or not there is any truth to that perception isn't a discussion I want to go anywhere near.

Oh, I totally agree with the public perception. My view has always been that Democrats are what successful entrepreneurs become once they have become sufficiently wealthy. It is easier to influence policy that will protect one's wealth if one supports a party that promotes bigger government. Income taxes might be avoided, but policy that protects one's wealth is worth investing in. Less business friendly policies means fewer compatitors for the already successful.

Again, that is my view. I have no proof that reality plays out that way.

Read THE BURNING CITY by Pournelle and Niven.

I think that both dynamics are at work.

The poor vote Democrat to ensure that wealth transfer programswill benefit them. They do not consider the possibility that the wealth transfer programs another Democrat policies might force them into depending on wealth transfer program.

The wealthiest people tend to either have accumulated assets that are not taxed when passively invested, so high, marginal income tax rates do not hurt them as much as upper middle class folk who are trying to accumulate wealth.

Also, the wealthiest people tend to work in professions that give them job security and price elasticity on their earnings. Why not vote for higher taxes when you can just charge more for your services?

Finally; most wealthy, educated people are professionals such as Doctors or Lawyers who had a prolonged adolescence during which they were dependant on either their wealthy parents or the government to support them. In contrast, Middle Class voters have accumulated wealth by starting work at a younger age, working longer hours and being frugal.

Not an exact comparison, but in Australia we tend towards the opposite situation. Our Republican equivalents are called the Liberals (true - even their party name is a lie), and our Democrat equivalent is Labor.

Our conservative Liberals naturally tend to get the business vote, but weirdly they get the Bogan (low socioeconomic group) vote as well. A sort of redneck flavour as this group is quite reactionary & tends to look to the US for values.

Labor tends to get the intellectuals along with the better educated workers.

Many years ago when I was a member of the Labor party I noted when handing out how to vote leaflets the suits and the roughly dressed tattooed yobs were the ones that rejected them.

It is funny in that like the US our system is fairly evenly balanced, and they take turns running the country. Whenever the conservatives get in they slash welfare, but the Bogans seem to have short attention spans and forget before the next election.

Don't forget that Australia also had arguably the king on redistricting in Sir Joh. Some of those electoral districts were pretzels.

In looking through this thread I see one real misapprehension: several people are using the term "very wealthy" when the study is really talking about upper-middle class whites. These people are not "VERY wealthy." That applies to the very topmost tier, the .01%, who are solidly Republican. The typical upper-middle class person doesn't have billions in personal wealth in off-shore accounts. That person is also not living off of investments that return income based on the labor of other people.