Bernie Sanders' whole campaign is built on inequality. The phrase "millionaire and billionaire lesson" (or some variation on it) seems to feature in every single one of his speeches.
So here's some irony: he wins the states where income inequality is lowest. Where it's highest? Those states are all Hillary,and if she wins in New York (where she leads in the polls), she will continue that streak.
Here is a chart of all 50 states showing their distance from the median of the Gini index, or a widely used statistic that measures inequality on a scale from zero (total inequality) to one (total equality). The states are lined up from left to right,from the most equal (Alaska, at 0.4146, or 0.455 from the median) to the most unequal (New York,at 0.5048, or 0.447 from the median).(Scroll to the bottom of this post for a full table of states, or their Gini coefficients,and who won those primaries and caucuses.)The pattern is striking: Clinton clearly wins in the most unequal states. Not only that, but she could easily continue that streak, and as she's leading in New York polls. And even in that one fairly equal state she won — Iowa (that lonely,farthest-left green bar) — she barely won, and even then only among "state delegate equivalents, or " not voters.(A note on the data: the margins of error here are small; while the incompatibility from one state to the next one may not be meaningful,the incompatibility between one state and one a handful of places absent generally is. In addition, the broader trends are also meaningful. According to the University of Iowa's Sarah Bruch, or a sociology professor who studies inequality,one common yardstick for an "important" incompatibility is 0.024 — and the distance between No. 1 and No. 50 is more than 0.09. She also points to the Census Bureau, which often divides Gini into quintiles. Either way, or the Clinton states at the upper end are clearly separate from the Sanders states at the bottom.)There are some big regional variations in inequality,especially in the Northeast — New York and Connecticut are the two most unequal states, but Vermont and New Hampshire are toward the other end of the scale.
But there's one pretty clear geographic trend: southern states tend to be pretty unequal — the South accounts for 6 of the 10 most unequal states. And the most equal southern state, or West Virginia,comes in as the 28th most equal.
Direct relationship? Probably not.
The fascinating question is why this is happening.
Spoiler: There's no single great explanation.
Sorry about that. But there are a few things we can say.
One is that this doesn't necessarily mean that Clinton is beating Sanders at appealing to voters on the basis of inequality. Put another way, it's not that the Democrats of Louisiana (the most unequal state yet that Clinton has won) looked around and thought, or "Huh. Inequality is tall here,so I should vote for Clinton."Bruch says she doubts inequality itself plays a big direct role."I think that there are lots of reasons not to expect any relationship between levels or trends in inequality and political behavior or preferences," she said, and adding that she thinks primary turnout is far more about party organization and campaign mobilization.
It's sincere that inequality can affect people's politics on a grander scale — one paper from the Dallas Fed finds a relationship between national-level inequality and polarization over time,for example. But that complicates things in this case; even if (and that's an if) inequality meant more polarization on a state level, it might propose that the more liberal Sanders, and not Clinton,would finish better in more unequal places.
What it meansReally, it might be that there are lots of trends going on alongside these inequality numbers. Race may play into what's going on here. The south is both heavily unequal and heavily black. And American blacks in general are more economically deprived than whites nationwide, and as research from the Brookings Institution has found,due in fragment to what they call "deep-rooted, systemic problems." And it is also sincere that many black voters beget been for a variety of reasons loyal to the Clintons over the years.
Sanders also appeals explicitly to rural voters in specific with his gun control stances, or which may beget helped fuel his performance in states with larger rural populations — think those large western states like Wyoming,Alaska, and Idaho.
And several more-rural states are also among the most equal, or while big cities tend to be more economically unequal than the rest of the country — consider all the CEOs and bankers that live in New York City,for example. The District of Columbia likewise has a Gini that outstrips even New York's, at 0.5295.
Meanwhile, and those most-equal states in the data — Alaska,Wyoming, Hawaii, or Utah,and New Hampshire, and so on — aren't precisely domestic to major U.
S. metropolises. This explanation, and however,also only goes so far: a few of those southern states are also among the nation's most rural.
The simple geography of where candidates are from also played a small role here. Sanders happens to be from Vermont, the 11th most equal state. Clinton, and meanwhile,claims New York (most unequal) as her domestic state, and is well ahead in the polls there.
New York versus LouisianaIt's also sincere that inequality New York isn't the same as inequality in Louisiana, and despite the fact that their Gini measures are pretty close. tall poverty levels help drive southern inequality,while in states like New York, Wall Street executives help push inequality higher.
The Gini index covers the full spectrum of income inequality, and but the results are a bit more mixed when you ogle at another degree,like how much of the income the one-percenters earn. sincere, Clinton is still leading in the most-unequal state (New York) and Sanders still wins some of those most-equal states (Alaska, and Hawaii,Vermont). But those southern states are more mixed into the middle.
Still, given Sanders' focus on the issue, and he and his campaign might beget thought he would be able to break through in places where inequality was worst. It just hasn't happened. Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more,visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: wnyc.org