I read this arti­cle in Slate, and thought — how inter­est­ing, and what does it mean. While I don’t pre­tend to know, I do want to keep it for reference..

How the Rich Are Dif­fer­ent From You and Me
Places that went for Obama are richer and smarter than places that went for McCain.
By Bill Bishop and Robert Cush­ing
Updated Thurs­day, Dec. 11, 2008, at 8:04 PM ET
Last month’s elec­tion was his­toric and may even have been trans­for­ma­tive, as many com­men­ta­tors said. But in one impor­tant respect, it changed noth­ing. The divide between Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats in Amer­ica con­tin­ues to grow.

And it isn’t just about pol­i­tics. The divi­sion is also between rich and poor, between those with col­lege edu­ca­tions and those with­out. On aver­age, Repub­li­can com­mu­ni­ties have lower incomes ! and less edu­ca­tion than Demo­c­ra­tic com­mu­ni­ties. And those dif­fer­ences are grow­ing as peo­ple migrate.

Just more than 600 coun­ties (of more than 3,100 nation­ally) voted Repub­li­can more heav­ily in this year’s pres­i­den­tial con­test than in 2004. The aver­age per capita yearly income in those coun­ties was about $18,800, accord­ing to county income tal­lies issued each year by the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice. (Income in this arti­cle is deter­mined by the amount of adjusted gross tax­able income listed on indi­vid­ual tax returns from 2004-07. Per capita income equals gross income divided by the num­ber of per­sonal exemp­tions.) By con­trast, those liv­ing in the 500-plus coun­ties that voted more heav­ily Demo­c­ra­tic this year than in 2004 had aver­age per­sonal incomes of $28,000—nearly 50 per­cent higher than the com­mu­ni­ties trend­ing Repub­li­can. The most Demo­c­ra­tic coun­ties (those where Barack Obama won by more than 20 per­cent­age points) had aver­age per capita incomes of $28,207. Those coun­ties where John McCain won by sim­i­lar mar­gins had aver­age per­sonal inc! omes of just $21,308.

Places divided by income are also sep­a­rated by edu­ca­tion. In land­slide Demo­c­ra­tic coun­ties, 32.7 per­cent of the adult pop­u­la­tion had a bachelor’s degree or bet­ter. In Repub­li­can coun­ties where McCain won by 20 points or bet­ter, 20.4 per­cent of adults had fin­ished col­lege or grad­u­ate school.

More than 30 years ago, poll­ster Everett Carll Ladd Jr. wrote about the “inver­sion of the New Deal Order.” Ladd was one of the first to notice that white work­ers with­out a col­lege degree were vot­ing Repub­li­can in larger num­bers and that edu­cated white work­ers were turn­ing Democratic.

The debate over whether working-class white vot­ers have aban­doned the Demo­c­ra­tic Party rages on. (See this recent paper on the “shift­ing and diverg­ing white work­ing class in U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.”) In the mean­time, the results from this year’s elec­tion show that there is cer­tainly a geogr! aphic divi­sion in Amer­ica based on class and sta­tus. Democ­rats won in the rich­est and most edu­cated com­mu­ni­ties in the country.

As peo­ple migrate, these divi­sions (polit­i­cal, edu­ca­tional, and eco­nomic) among Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties are increas­ing. Again using IRS records, we tracked the aver­age income of peo­ple who moved between coun­ties since the 2004 elec­tion. Those who trekked across state lines from 2003-07 and set­tled in coun­ties that grew more Repub­li­can this year had aver­age incomes of $18,300. The peo­ple who moved into coun­ties that became more Demo­c­ra­tic in 2008 aver­aged $28,100 in yearly income. So those who moved to blue coun­ties had incomes more than 50 per­cent higher than those migrat­ing to the red­dest of counties.

And in the “flip” coun­ties, the con­trast is even starker. In all of the United States, there were only 44 coun­ties that voted for John Kerry in 2004 but for John McCain in 2008. The aver­age annual per capita income of the peo­ple who moved into these coun­ties between the two elec­tions was $16,500. That’s 34 pe! rcent less than those who migrated into the 331 coun­ties that went for George Bush in ’04 but Obama in ’08.

Peo­ple with fewer money-making skills are mov­ing into coun­ties that are vot­ing increas­ingly Repub­li­can. Those with higher incomes (and more edu­ca­tion) are mov­ing into coun­ties that are vot­ing more Demo­c­ra­tic. The more lop­sided the local polit­i­cal vic­tory, the greater the dif­fer­ences in income and education.

This phe­nom­e­non held true in cities and rural com­mu­ni­ties alike. In those urban cen­ters that voted over­whelm­ingly for John McCain, 23.6 per­cent of the adult pop­u­la­tion had at least a bachelor’s degree. In urban coun­ties that voted in a land­slide for Obama, 33.3 per­cent had at least a col­lege degree. In rural coun­ties that voted in a land­slide for McCain, 15.2 per­cent of adults had a col­lege degree or bet­ter. In rural Obama land­slide coun­ties, it was 19.2 percent.

We don’t pre­tend to under­stand the full mean­ing of how this coun­try is divid­ing. We c! an see, how­ever, that Amer­ica is becom­ing more polar­ized not only poli tically but also edu­ca­tion­ally and economically—and that a coun­try Balka­nized by skills and by income has more trou­bles than one that is sim­ply divided by votes.

Bill Bishop and Robert Cush­ing are authors of The Big Sort: Why the Clus­ter­ing of Like-Minded Amer­ica Is Tear­ing Us Apart.

Arti­cle URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2206512/