It'd be nice if people understood statistics
So, I have read a fair bit about how more urban areas tend to pay more in taxes than they get back in taxes and rural areas tend to be the reverse. Urban areas tend to need to support rural areas. Now, I don't think rural areas should be forced to cope with all of their expenses on their own, and I think cutting them off from the rest of the world or decreasing the quality of their education would be a very bad thing, but that isn't what this entry is about.
I wanted to get some stats to back up what I've read. Now, I can find stats on a state by state basis, but that's tedious. I wanted more overall stats for the tendencies of the nation, since I didn't feel like looking up info on each state in the US and doing real research. I was curious to verify what I read, but not really that totally into confirming it. I did find some people citing evidence claiming to disprove this concept, and it made me want to hit them with a statistics book. The claim they were trying to disprove was the idea that urban areas pay more in taxes than they receive. The statistic they used as evidence to "disprove" this is that urban areas receive more tax money per capita than rural areas do.
The problem with this is that it is fully possible for both things to be true. In fact, I would be completely and totally unsurprised if both things were true. Sure, some people were talking about different definitions of "rural" and "urban", but not knowing whether or not it is the case, let's assume for the moment that both are true. That would work quite simply - urban areas would be paying more in taxes per capita, getting more per capita but not as much more as they are paying. If that is the case, then both statistics would be true.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, because I expect higher paying jobs tend to be urban, but the government also runs a lot of services that require using land and paying salaries. The land in urban areas will cost more and the salaries will tend to be higher. So, the government will have higher expenses for many equivalent services, but it will be making money more efficiently, because it will be getting back more of that money. That is, in the rural area you might have to pay your teacher less, In exchange for this though, your teacher is supporting a community that isn't as economically productive overall, and thus is giving the government back a lot less in taxes. Whereas in the city, the teacher needs more money to support the higher housing costs and such, but the teacher is supporting a community of people who are being very economically productive.
Basically, what is relevant is not just how much you spend, but how much you make. This should be a familiar concept to anyone who has had to work out a household budget. If you have a larger income, you can afford more spendings and still have savings. But a smaller amount of spendings will be a serious problem if your income is really small. And people were talking about the difference between taxes in versus federal money gotten.
So, while I still don't have good research on the issue (the downside to being lazy), I am frustrated with people showing a lack of understanding of statistics. Because throwing different statistics into the mix does not help to clear up the issue. And because I so often see people just not understanding stats. It really saddens me the extent to which people tend not to get some basic statistical concepts. I really would like it if schools would teach some of these concepts. It's not so much that this specific issue is one people must understand (I'm too lazy to do the research, after all), but that statistical understanding comes up in so many ways, and being able to understand stats in general is such an important skill. Besides, it's annoying to see people try to argue a point with an unrelated statistic as if it is connected to the point. Study stats and decrease the amount of annoyance in the world.
I wanted to get some stats to back up what I've read. Now, I can find stats on a state by state basis, but that's tedious. I wanted more overall stats for the tendencies of the nation, since I didn't feel like looking up info on each state in the US and doing real research. I was curious to verify what I read, but not really that totally into confirming it. I did find some people citing evidence claiming to disprove this concept, and it made me want to hit them with a statistics book. The claim they were trying to disprove was the idea that urban areas pay more in taxes than they receive. The statistic they used as evidence to "disprove" this is that urban areas receive more tax money per capita than rural areas do.
The problem with this is that it is fully possible for both things to be true. In fact, I would be completely and totally unsurprised if both things were true. Sure, some people were talking about different definitions of "rural" and "urban", but not knowing whether or not it is the case, let's assume for the moment that both are true. That would work quite simply - urban areas would be paying more in taxes per capita, getting more per capita but not as much more as they are paying. If that is the case, then both statistics would be true.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, because I expect higher paying jobs tend to be urban, but the government also runs a lot of services that require using land and paying salaries. The land in urban areas will cost more and the salaries will tend to be higher. So, the government will have higher expenses for many equivalent services, but it will be making money more efficiently, because it will be getting back more of that money. That is, in the rural area you might have to pay your teacher less, In exchange for this though, your teacher is supporting a community that isn't as economically productive overall, and thus is giving the government back a lot less in taxes. Whereas in the city, the teacher needs more money to support the higher housing costs and such, but the teacher is supporting a community of people who are being very economically productive.
Basically, what is relevant is not just how much you spend, but how much you make. This should be a familiar concept to anyone who has had to work out a household budget. If you have a larger income, you can afford more spendings and still have savings. But a smaller amount of spendings will be a serious problem if your income is really small. And people were talking about the difference between taxes in versus federal money gotten.
So, while I still don't have good research on the issue (the downside to being lazy), I am frustrated with people showing a lack of understanding of statistics. Because throwing different statistics into the mix does not help to clear up the issue. And because I so often see people just not understanding stats. It really saddens me the extent to which people tend not to get some basic statistical concepts. I really would like it if schools would teach some of these concepts. It's not so much that this specific issue is one people must understand (I'm too lazy to do the research, after all), but that statistical understanding comes up in so many ways, and being able to understand stats in general is such an important skill. Besides, it's annoying to see people try to argue a point with an unrelated statistic as if it is connected to the point. Study stats and decrease the amount of annoyance in the world.