The Juxtaposition of Wealth and Poverty in California’s Counties
The state of California is one of the largest states with a population of 39 million, being such a large state it creates a polarizing dispersion of wealth in the different counties. It's important to see how wealth is separated in relation to the population of the different counties as well as the different levels of employment to see if there are any correlations. This is best seen in a scatterplot which allows us to see any outliers between population and income as well as differentiating the different levels of unemployment between the different counties.
Looking at the scatterplot we can see that there is a large cluster of counties towards the bottom left of the plot with both low populations as well as low median income. We can also see that the percentage of unemployment fluctuates with only one county having an unemployment rate of 16% the rest range from 10% to 6–4% unemployment. Looking at the counties we can see that these for the most part are rural counties that have low populations as well as not many businesses or jobs to help bolster the median income. Looking at some of the outliers we can see that Los Angeles has a drastically larger population than any other county with more than 2 times the population of San Diego, and Orange County and over 4 times the population of San Fransisco. The large amount of people living in Los Angeles creates a disparity in regard to the median income for the county as there are so many people living there which dilutes the massive earners in the county that live there. We can also see that after a certain threshold the unemployment rate doesn’t go above 6% and this occurs at around the $90,000 median income mark effectively changing the employment rates of the counties beyond that range. This can be inferred by the higher cost of living in some of these counties such as San Francisco and Marin which are both around the $120,000 income range but are also some of the lowest populations of any county rivaling that of the more rural counties in Northern California.
When looking at other aspects of California’s counties we can see that there are many different attributes that correlate within all of the counties that have an impact on not just median income but other aspects as well. To show this I created a heat map of California’s counties so that we could see the different ways attributes correlate and don’t correlate. The darker a color in the heat map represents a negative correlation meaning no relation and the brighter a color in the heatmap represents a positive correlation with the different attributes. This goes beyond our main question of income disparity but with different traits but we will focus solely on different things that impact income across all the counties.
We can see that college graduates are positively correlated which makes sense as a higher level of education allows for more potential to get a higher-paying job, we can also see that there is a positive connection between Broadband (internet) as well as health care with income. All of these are benefits that are directly related to one’s income in the state of California as well as the overarching United States due to our capitalist market since citizens must pay for their own health care or get it through their jobs. Looking at negative relating traits in relation to median income we can see traits like being a high school grad, being born in the same state, and receiving assistance from the state are all negatively correlated with income. This heatmap helps us understand different traits that are connected to one’s income in California’s different counties as well as how different traits are related to one another. Something that was interesting was population didn’t have a polarizing effect on income in one way or another other rather it was a trait that was more neutral.
When compared in a different light like in the scatterplot above we could see specifically where population played a more prominent role in counties such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Trinity, but on a larger scale population doesn’t have a strong effect directly towards one’s income. Something we see is that income has an effect on the different qualities of life one is able to afford in California such as internet, healthcare, and potentially being able to afford to get a college degree be it in-state or out-of-state. This helps to illuminate the fact that income is not just a one-way street in regards to how people are able to gain wealth but also the different things they are able to access once they have wealth and the different luxuries and possibilities they are then able to afford.
