

US Percent of Income Spent on Gas Map - dangoldin
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/06/09/business/20080609_GAS_GRAPHIC.html#

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brfox
somewhat silly map. If you go to the income tab, then there are almost no
differences in median percent of income spent on gas vs. median income. Even
gas prices are correlated with median income (maybe the oil companies do have
a heart and having the higher income regions "subsidize" the lower income
regions... actually it probably has a lot to do with gas taxes).

That being said, I was a bit shocked that some median people pay 15% of their
income in gas. yikes!

Come to think of it, I bet they just divided the median spent on gas with the
median income instead of actually finding the median of % income spent on gas
(e.g. maybe lower income people drive less than higher income people so the
median will be lower).

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dreish
I don't think that's correct. I believe the first map is percent of total
income in the county spent on gas. There's no median involved in that one.

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culley
Living in NM, the rural areas are really poor (Income ~25% less than urban),
mostly agriculture (big trucks), and long distances to travel to get to gas
stations. Combine that with all the young kids moving away (free lottery
scholarships) and a higher than normal percentage of people on fixed income,
and I'm only surprised the gas doesn't eat up more of their income.

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pg
Remarkable how well it lines up with counties that voted for Bush.

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byrneseyeview
<http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_02_11/article.html>

Cheap real estate (which usually equates to lots of driving) is a very strong
predictor of votes for Bush.

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dkokelley
Why wasn't there any mention of traveling distance in the article or map?
While it would make sense that the rural areas earn less, and therefor spend a
higher percentage on the relatively constant gas prices, shouldn't it also be
considered that those in rural areas must drive farther to reach their
destinations, and across unimproved roads at times?

In the more populated areas, we may only drive 10 - 50 minutes to our
destination, and most of that might be in traffic (at least here in southern
California). Of course we wouldn't need to spend as much in gas. Everything's
closer.

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natch
I bet there's pretty close to an inverse relationship between the percentage
spent for gas, and the percentage spent for housing, especially when you
normalize for income. Would be interesting to see some mashups of this type of
data.

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viergroupie
Is that a map of population density I see?

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bluelu
You could also call it US Percenf of Income Spent on Destroying the World.

