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Old_Captain_9131 t1_jdwymor wrote

Oh this is nice. Is there an inverse correlation with the state's GDP, or average income? Seems that the rich states are the ones having high poverty rate.

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FlyingSquirlez OP t1_jdx5i3g wrote

I did some quick data analysis because your comment made me curious, and it looks like there are only very weak correlations (R^2 < 0.2) between state GDP or average income and SPM values with low slope trendlines. I can see where the idea comes from, though, with many of the richest states also having high SPM. That said, there are notable exceptions (Illinois, Washington, Massachusetts, etc.) to this, and you can see many of the poorest states also have high SPM values. All in all, it's a wash.

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J_McJesky t1_jdxm5an wrote

Does the SPM take homelessness into account? If it has weighting for higher rates of unhoused individuals, the correlation could simply be with climate. CA and TX for example are wealthy, have higher than average homelessness, and have few days below freezing annually in their major population centers.

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FlyingSquirlez OP t1_jdxqxhi wrote

The data comes from the Current Population Survey, which is sponsored jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. This is a household survey, so it only samples those with an address. This is a potential shortcoming of the survey, as states like Hawaii, New York, and California with homelessness rates of ~0.3% to ~0.5% may in fact get undercounted.

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vindictivejazz t1_jdymzh3 wrote

Probably more cost of living than anything else. I’m comfortably upper middle class in the Midwest but my same salary would put me at or below the poverty line in NYC, DC, or San Fran. Which this measure accounts for

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jmlinden7 t1_je0jjcc wrote

It roughly correlates to cost of living, but Hawaii and Washington (which have high cost of living) are still pretty low in this measure.

It's just a combination of cost of living and unadjusted poverty rate. Hawaii and Washington have very low unadjusted poverty rates. California has very high cost of living.

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