12 November 2023

Top and Bottom 10 Counties by Average Income - How the Richest Counties Vote and How the Poorest Counties Have Fared in the Last Year

Now that the pandemic is over and the world has gone back to real world interactions, New York County has again taken the top spot for average income, surpassing Silicon Valley counties.

So many fascinating things to tease out from the data in these 2 tables but I'll focus on just two.

One, across the US, the ratio of Biden voters to Trump voters was 1.1. Within the ten counties that make the highest income, that ratio was 3.7. The average voter in the richest county was nearly 4X more likely to vote for Biden. Within the ten counties with the lowest income, that ratio was 0.8. Communities that struggle to succeed generally think that Trump's policies make sense. Communities that are thriving dismiss the notion that Trump's policies make any sense.
Two, in the last year, the poorest counties have done better than the wealthy counties. Across the country, average wages are up 6.6%. In the 10 richest counties, wages rose only 3.4%. In the 10 
poorest counties, wages rose by 8.2%.

To recap, richer counties don't take Trump or his policies seriously. Poorer counties are doing better under Biden than are richer counties. Biden promised to help the working poor; it seems like that's happening.

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