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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIncome Inequality Is Higher In Democratic Districts Than Republican Ones
The folks at Bloomberg Rankings, drawing on U.S. Census data, have measured the level of inequalitythe Gini coefficientin each of the 435 U.S. congressional districts. Its a fascinating list (and a map) that reveals all sorts of interesting things. Heres one: 32 of the 35 districts in which inequality is greatest are represented by Democrats (Republicans represent two; the other is vacant).
These districts are spread across the country, from the Northeast to the Southeast, to the West Coast, and even the Midwest. Why do Democrats dominate them? Because almost every one of these 35 districts lies in an urban center dominated by two groups of people living in close proximity to each other: highly educated, highly paid whites and poor blacks and Latinos. These groups are essentially the Democratic Partys base.
If youre curious about how two Republican lawmakers showed up on this list, each of their districts turns out to represent a slight twist on this same urban formula. Florida Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinens district (the states 27th) includes part of Miami and extends along the coast to the south. It encompasses plenty of Miami Beach ritz and a poor minority population that lives nearbybut the latter are mostly Cuban Americans who, unlike members of other minority communities, reliably vote Republican:
Cook Political Report
The other Republican district is Texas Representative John Culbersons (the states 7th), which is predominantly composed of the wealthy suburbs northwest of Houston. George H.W. Bush once represented this district. The extreme inequality stems from a Republican gerrymander in 2010, designed to help the party elsewhere, that added many poor Latinos to Culbersons district. Republicans threw in the Gulfton neighborhood of Houston, which has one of the highest concentrations of undocumented immigrants in the country, says David Wasserman, House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. These new, poor residents of the 7th district dont threaten Culbersons seat because few of them vote. Wasserman says the 2010 census counted 106,000 residentsyet fewer than 6,000 voted in 2008. Republicans were smart to include these nonvoting Latinos in Culbersons district, because in so doing they were able to pack more higher-turnout Democratic areas into other districts without marginalizing Culbersons hold on TX-07.
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http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-12/income-inequality-is-higher-in-democratic-districts-than-republican-ones#r=rss
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)backscatter712
(26,355 posts)...and vote for the other guys.