Last fall, The WaPo created an interactive map inspired by Charles Murray’s idea of indexing zip codes by median household income and percent of college graduates. My zip code is in the 80th percentile. The zip code of the suburban St. Louis location where I will be speaking next month, in part about the forces driving the distribution of income, is in the 99th percentile.
The WaPo story says,
In 1970, 65 percent of families lived in middle-income neighborhoods; four decades later, 42 percent did.
Meanwhile, the share of families living in affluent neighborhoods doubled, from 7 percent to 15 percent, as did families living in poor neighborhoods, from 8 percent to 18 percent.
They are citing this report.
I am not sure why I did not see this earlier. For the pointer I thank Jason Brennan on Facebook.
Why do we persist in the idea that there’s a correlation between college graduation and income?
For that matter, why do we continue with the idea that comparing gross income between locations, without adjusting for “cost of living” is meaningful?
“Why do we persist in the idea that there’s a correlation between college graduation and income?”
I think you might mean causal relationship.
“For that matter, why do we continue with the idea that comparing gross income between locations, without adjusting for “cost of living” is meaningful?”
Local discontinuities are interesting all on their own. Check out 44106. I used to go to school right along the eastern boarder of that zip code. We pretty much did all our recreation (ie walking to bars) to the east. This illustrates why.
Average Is Over!!!
Well, it’s declining, anyway.