Data Show Red State Voters Vote Against Their Own Interests

Red state voters have to understand they are voting against their own interests, and blue state voters need to make income inequality the issue, solid data show:

Between 1979 and 2007, the top 1 percent took home well over half (53.9 percent) of the total increase in U.S. income. Over this period, the average income of the bottom 99 percent of U.S. taxpayers grew by 18.9 percent. Simultaneously, the average income of the top 1 percent grew over 10 times as much—by 200.5 percent.

Lopsided income growth characterizes every state between 1979 and 2007.

• In four states (Nevada, Wyoming, Michigan, and Alaska), only the top 1 percent experienced rising incomes between 1979 and 2007, and the average income of the bottom 99 percent fell.
• In another 15 states the top 1 percent captured between half and 84 percent of all income growth between 1979 and 2007. Those states are Arizona (where 84.2 percent of all income growth was captured by the top 1 percent), Oregon (81.8 percent), New Mexico (72.6 percent), Hawaii (70.9 percent), Florida (68.9 percent), New York (67.6 percent), Illinois (64.9 percent), Connecticut (63.9 percent), California (62.4 percent), Washington (59.1 percent), Texas (55.3 percent), Montana (55.2 percent), Utah (54.1 percent), South Carolina (54.0 percent), and West Virginia (53.3 percent).
• In the 10 states in which the top 1 percent captured the smallest share of income growth from 1979 to 2007, the top 1 percent captured between about a quarter and just over a third of all income growth. Those states are Louisiana (where 25.6 percent of all income growth was captured by the top 1 percent), Virginia (29.5 percent), Iowa (29.8 percent), Mississippi (29.8 percent), Maine (30.5 percent), Rhode Island (32.6 percent), Nebraska (33.5 percent), Maryland (33.6 percent), Arkansas (34.0 percent), and North Dakota (34.2 percent).

The lopsided growth in U.S. incomes observed between 1979 and 2007 resulted in a rise in every state in the top 1 percent’s share of income. This rise in income inequality represents a sharp reversal of the patterns of income growth that prevailed in the half century following the beginning of the Great Depression; the share of income held by the top 1 percent declined in every state but one between 1928 and 1979.

After incomes at all levels declined as a result of the Great Recession, lopsided income growth has reemerged since the recovery began in 2009, with the top 1 percent capturing an alarming share of economic growth.

• University of California at Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez estimates that between 2009 and 2012, the top 1 percent captured 95 percent of total income growth.¹
• Data for individual states (available only through 2011) show that rising inequality has again become a pervasive trend: Between 2009 and 2011, in 33 states the top 1 percent captured between half and all income growth.
  • The states in which all income growth between 2009 and 2011 accrued to the top 1 percent include Colorado, Illinois, Florida, Arizona, Oregon, Arkansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Connecticut, Tennessee, New York, Ohio, Georgia, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Nevada, South Carolina, Alabama, Idaho, North Carolina, Missouri, Washington, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
  • The remaining states in which the top 1 percent captured half or more of income growth between 2009 and 2011 include Kansas (where 91.2 percent of all income growth was captured by the top 1 percent), Michigan (91.0 percent), New Hampshire (83.3 percent), Indiana (75.6 percent), Texas (74.4 percent), Wisconsin (70.5 percent), and Maine (60.0 percent).

Focusing on inequality in 2011, the most recent year for which state data are available, New York and Connecticut had the largest gaps between the average incomes of the top 1 percent and the average incomes of the bottom 99 percent. In both states the top 1 percent earn average incomes roughly 40 times those of the bottom 99 percent. This reflects in part the relative concentration of the financial sector in and beyond the New York City metropolitan area.

• The next eight states with the largest gaps between the top 1 percent and bottom 99 percent in 2011 are Florida (where the top 1 percent earned 32.2 times as much as the bottom 99 percent, on average), Massachusetts (30.2), Nevada (29.5), Wyoming (27.6), California (26.8), Texas (26.3), Illinois (24.5), and New Jersey (23.9).
• Even in the 10 states with the smallest gaps between the top 1 percent and bottom 99 percent in 2011, the top 1 percent earned between about 12 and 17 times the income of the bottom 99 percent. Those states include Kentucky (where the top 1 percent earned 16.7 times as much as the bottom 99 percent, on average), Idaho (16.3), Delaware (16.2), New Mexico (15.6), Nebraska (15.5), Mississippi (15.2), Maine (14.9), Iowa (13.7), Alaska (13.5), and Hawaii (12.1).