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September 21, 2004
Best Interests?
Last night I came across this post by Kevin Drum which linked to an Austin-American Stateman article showing the 100 most Democratic and Republican counties in the country in 2000. When I looked at the list I noticed an odd correspondence with another list I've seen frequently here in Nebraska, the number of Nebraska counties in the 100 poorest counties in the nation according to per capita personal income (pcpi).
I finally found the list of counties by pcpi that I could download into a spreadsheet today in Unfair Competition and it was where I'd been looking, The Bureau of Economic Analysis website. I just had to drill several levels down into a dataset I didn't see last night. I doubt I'd be able to find it again without a lot of trial and error.
My hypothesis as to Nebraska counties was fairly on target although, oddly enough, it didn't apply much to other states. In 2000, Nebraska had the dubious honor of having 4 of the 10 poorest counties in the country, Loup (#1), Arthur (#2), Blaine (#4), Grant (#5). Expand that list to 20 and we can bring in McPherson (#12), Sioux (#16), and Hooker (#20). Cross-referencing this with the 100 most Republican counties list shows that Arthur, Blaine, Grant and Sioux were among the 20 most Republican counties in America in 2000. Throw Thomas county in there, too, as 94th poorest and 26th Republicanest.
Now why is this? Did they not expect the horrendous farm bill passed in 2001? Did they even care about that since the homos were itchin' to get hitched and Dick Gephardt was gonna take away their 30 ought 6's and their bibles?
And why is this almost an exclusively Nebraska phenomenon? Only two other counties made both lists: Madison, ID was the 37th poorest and 6th Republicanest, and Sanpete, UT, 85th poorest and 69th Republicanest.
One cause could be the candidacy of Nebraska Godhead, Tom Osborne, as 3rd district congressman. I didn't see the Statesman's methodology anywhere so I'm assuming it was based on all elections held in 2000. Osborne's margins of victory have been in the 60+% range each times he's run, which would skew the results somewhat. And God knows, it's a sin to vote against the football coach. And business as usual anyway. TO is in D.C. to vote for everything Hastert and Delay tell him to. Oh, he might make noise about protecting trout streams every now and then (he wouldn't want his hobby to be endangered) and he's hot on banning betting on college football in Vegas. Why that's stupid is enough to make up another post so I'll save it.
Any other Nebraskans, poor people or Republicans care to chime in?
Posted by Half-Cocked at September 21, 2004 10:34 PM
Comments
I was pretty sure SD had the dubious honor of having the poorest county in the United States. Check out this data:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/2000census/poppvstat00.html
Look at Shannon and Buffalo Counties in SD. 52% and 56%! That blows Loup out of the water. These are primarily Indian Country counties. Very poor places.
Posted by: Eric at September 21, 2004 11:27 PM
I think it depends on what measure the government uses. The Pine Ridge counties are poorest by absolute poverty, but Loup was poorest by pcpi, since poverty is relative. Plus, that's the number I see when the World-Herald, Journal-Star and NY Times print stories about poor Nebraska.
Posted by: Steve at September 21, 2004 11:35 PM
Read What's The Matter With Kansas, by Thomas Frank. He's got a very good take on what's going on in Kansas and it's pretty much the same here.
phat
Posted by: phat at September 22, 2004 07:33 PM
I've read that book. I think it's probably worse in Nebraska, though.
Posted by: Steve at September 22, 2004 08:27 PM