Wild & Wacky Stats!

[nclib]

How do you measure taxation by state? It looks like combined federal and state per capita in absolute dollars, not state alone, and not as a percentage of income.

Not sure how this was measured, but if it were absolute dollars, California would be way higher than Mississippi.

[nclib]

I have no idea what to make of those numbers [Percentage of Married Couples with Both Spouses in the Workforce]:. None.

1. Farmers
2. Middle-class professionals

as opposed to

3. Economically depressed areas with no jobs to spare (Appalachia, mitigating in N.Y., Penn., Michigan)
4. Places with lots of construction (I have no idea if that's causation, but what else links California, Florida, and Arizona?)
4a. Duh. Retirees.

Of course retirees skew the data, but in general I was expecting the liberal states to be more supportive of women in the workplace.

Regarding farmers, brittain, are you saying that the Midwest has high employment rate of both spouses because of couples that live/work on farms?

[nclib]

Percentage of Married Couples with Both Spouses in the Workforce:

I have no idea what to make of those numbers. None.

Try, "Glad to see the south is progressive in yet another area."

Err... the South does not appear to be doing too well on that map.

This map is not surprising at all.  Places in the upper midwest have long had a reputation of hard work ethics.  I'd say a combination of poverty and social conservatism tends to lead to lower workforce participation among married women.  They either can't find a job or they don't want one, citing "traditional values".

The congressional districts below 40% are:

AZ-4 (Phoenix)
CA-31,34 (Los Angeles & SE suburbs)
FL-5,13,14,16,19 (W Coast, north of St. Pete, south of St. Pete, and inland Palm Beach)
IL-4 (Chicago)
KY-5 (Eastern)
NY-16 (Bronx)
TX-15,16,29 (South, El Paso, and Houston)
WV-3 (South)

Below 45%

AZ-1,2,7 (Southwest, and North)
CA-18,20,28,32,33,35,37,38,39,41,43,45,47,51 (Mostly LA)
FL-15,18
LA-3 (Acadia)
MI-13,14 (Detroit)
NJ-13 (Jersey Shore of Hudson)
NM-2 (South)
NY-5,7,8,9,10,12,13 (NYC)
OK-2 (East)
PA-1 (Philadelphia)
TX-18,27,28 (Houston, and South)

Those over 60%

CO-2,6 (Denver suburban)
CT-2 (east)
GA-7 (Atlanta suburban north)
IA-2,3,4,5 (All but eastern)
MD-4,5 (DC suburbs, exurbs)
MN-1,2,3,4,5,6,7 (All but northeast).  MN-2 (southern Twin Cities sub/ex-urbs is national leader at 69.8%.
NE-1,2,3 (all)
NH-1,2 (all)
NC-4 (Research Triangle)
ND-AL
O-15 (Columbus west)
SD-AL
TX-24 (Mid Cities)
VT-AL
VA-8,10,11 (NOVA)

From that list, aside from the Florida ones which are skewed by retirees, it looks like in general this is correlated with economic conditions. It also seems that districts with a high Hispanic population make up the first two lists, which could be due to economic conditions or traditional values.

Edit: In fact the first list, aside from the Florida ones (retirees), all are majority-Hispanic districts except for KY-5 and WV-3 (poor, rural, Appalachian whites).