In late March 2014 the Associated Press (AP) reported that eight of ten US House of Representative Districts with the highest annual mean incomes were districts held by Democrats.
This was somewhat surprising as the media constantly labels Republicans “the party of the rich.” The article went on to list the top ten Congressional Districts predominantly on the East and West Coasts and led by several well known and very liberal Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman and Jerry Nadler.
In response to this article, we decided to review the most recent Census data ourselves and see what other items of interest might be found hidden in this data.
Progressives Today first collected the 2012 US census data housed at the government census site. We also obtained a list of Congressional Representatives and their party affiliation from the US Congressional website for the 113th Congress voted into office starting in 2012 and combined these files into one massive spreadsheet to obtain relationships.
And, what we found was truly shocking.
First of all, it is clear from the US Census data that Democrats are the party of rich.
14 of the top 20 richest districts in America are Democratic districts.
But this next piece of data will shock you—
36 of the 39 poorest districts in America are Democratic districts. ( Data does not include the US territories of Guam, Samoa, Mariana Islands, Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico which are also represented by Democrats)
And the working class districts are represented by Republicans by almost a two-to-one ratio. If you excluded the 20 richest districts and the bottom 39 poorest districts there are 225 Republican working class districts and only 152 Democrat working class districts.
Republicans overwhelmingly represent the middle class districts by almost a two-to-one ratio.
According to Census data US districts with households making $50,000 and $74,999 (33%), and households with incomes between $35,000 and $49,999 (38%) were highly correlated with Republicans.
Maybe this explains why Democrats always say they want to help the middle class but all of their policies actually hurt the middle class.
…Much more coming in our US Census investigation.
By Joe Hoft and Jim Hoft
