placestats

Returns reporting capital gains and Adult income rank of children raised poor here

Where Returns reporting capital gains is higher, Adult income rank of children raised poor here tends to be higher. The link is moderate: +0.55 across 3,119 counties, on a scale from −1 (opposite) to +1 (in step). That figure compares places with the same population density, income and education, so those differences can't explain it. It holds inside states too. Measured separately within each of 40 states, the middle value of the link is +0.46.

Holds after adjusting

Every place, plotted

One dot for each place reporting both measures. Hover over or tap a dot to see its name and values. The thin line is the straight line that best fits the dots. The bold line, shown for counties, is the link after adjusting for density, income and education. A dot far from the lines is a place that does not follow the pattern.

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What each measure is

Returns reporting capital gains

The percentage of tax returns reporting a capital gain: profit from selling something like stock or property.

IRS Statistics of Income · IRS SOI N01000 / N1

Adult income rank of children raised poor here

Where children who grew up here with poor parents ended up as adults, ranked against everyone in the country by income, on a scale from 0 to 1. A value of 0.5 would mean that on average they reached the middle of the national income ladder.

Opportunity Atlas · Opportunity Insights kfr_pooled_pooled_p25

Highest and lowest

Where each measure is highest and lowest among the places reporting both (2023), with the other measure beside it. This is shown for every size of place where both are published. Metro-area values are added up from their counties. A measure that cannot be added up across counties, such as a middle value (median), has no metro figure. Counts are shown per 1,000 residents, since raw totals would only list the largest places. Cities and towns and ZIP codes are shown where the Census survey or the CDC publishes them; most other sources stop at the county. They are shown for places of 5,000 residents or more, and only where the survey’s margin of error is small enough for the figure to be usable. The CDC publishes its health estimates for cities in a version adjusted for age, so places with older or younger people can be compared fairly, but not for ZIP codes.

Counties

By returns reporting capital gains

Returns reporting capital gainsAdult income rank of children raised poor here
Highest
Harding County, SD46.6%0.688
McPherson County, NE45%0.556
Garfield County, MT44.4%0.416
Carter County, MT44.1%0.563
Marin County, CA43.9%0.479
Lowest
Kenedy County, TX0%0.417
Kusilvak Census Area, AK0.722%0.216
Starr County, TX2.19%0.459
Maverick County, TX2.5%0.453
Oglala Lakota County, SD2.63%0.248

By adult income rank of children raised poor here

Returns reporting capital gainsAdult income rank of children raised poor here
Highest
Harding County, SD46.6%0.688
Bowman County, ND34.7%0.675
Grant County, ND35%0.667
Billings County, ND34%0.666
Golden Valley County, ND31.3%0.662
Lowest
Kusilvak Census Area, AK0.722%0.216
Hoonah-Angoon Census Area, AK15.8%0.237
Northwest Arctic Borough, AK3.21%0.242
Bethel Census Area, AK3.38%0.245
Oglala Lakota County, SD2.63%0.248
States — Adult income rank of children raised poor here is not published for states

By returns reporting capital gains

Returns reporting capital gainsAdult income rank of children raised poor here
Highest
District of Columbia23.9%—
Washington23.4%—
Massachusetts22.8%—
New Jersey22.4%—
Connecticut22.3%—
Lowest
Mississippi10.1%—
West Virginia11.2%—
Alabama12.8%—
Louisiana13.1%—
New Mexico13.4%—
Metro areas

By returns reporting capital gains

Returns reporting capital gainsAdult income rank of children raised poor here
Highest
Wildwood-The Villages, FL37.9%0.364
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA36.3%0.472
Jackson, WY-ID35.2%0.528
Boulder, CO34.6%0.449
Heber, UT33.1%0.543
Lowest
Rio Grande City-Roma, TX2.19%0.459
Eagle Pass, TX2.5%0.453
Gallup, NM3.21%0.354
Raymondville, TX3.64%0.418
El Centro, CA3.72%0.366

By adult income rank of children raised poor here

Returns reporting capital gainsAdult income rank of children raised poor here
Highest
Dickinson, ND21.7%0.625
Carroll, IA25.5%0.59
Williston, ND16.4%0.586
Le Mars, IA20.9%0.551
Heber, UT33.1%0.543
Lowest
Laurinburg, NC8.5%0.311
Greenville, MS6.75%0.319
Lumberton, NC4.6%0.321
Henderson, NC7.15%0.324
Clarksdale, MS7.02%0.325

Counties furthest from the pattern

Compared with the straight line that best fits all 3,138 counties: the five with far more adult income rank of children raised poor here than their returns reporting capital gains would suggest, and the five with far less.

Returns reporting capital gainsAdult income rank of children raised poor here
Above the line
Upton County, TX8.63%0.582
Lincoln County, NV11.7%0.582
Piute County, UT14.1%0.59
Crane County, TX5.94%0.539
Mountrail County, ND19.2%0.616
Below the line
Mineral County, CO26.5%0.294
Sumter County, FL37.9%0.364
Greene County, GA33.5%0.34
Hoonah-Angoon Census Area, AK15.8%0.237
Garfield County, MT44.4%0.416

Two series, one county

Both measures over time for a county you pick. The two charts are stacked, so they share only the years along the bottom. You can pick from the thirty largest counties reporting both. This panel covers 2010–2024, and a measure published only once shows as a single dot.

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Every version of the link

Each row measures the same link, from −1 to +1, in a different way. If the rows mostly agree, the link does not depend on one choice of method.

Before adjusting for anything+0.6433,119 counties reporting both
After adjusting for density, income and education+0.553the part of the link that is not just how urban, rich and educated a place is
Also adjusting for population size+0.538size taken out as well as density
Also comparing only within each state+0.404each county is compared only with others in its own state, so this is no longer a comparison between states
Giving bigger counties more weight+0.265the adjusted link for the average resident rather than the average county. With this weighting, the data counts for about 287 equally weighted counties
Middle value inside single states+0.457the link worked out inside each of 40 states with at least 20 counties reporting
Using ranks, after adjusting+0.483uses each county’s rank, not its value, so a few extreme counties cannot create the link

How much to believe it

Could it be chance?

The p-value is the chance of seeing a link this strong if there were really none. A value of 0.05 or less means the link is unlikely to be chance. Very small values are written in short form: 3.1e-16 means 0.00000000000000031, and the bigger the number after “e-”, the smaller the value. Treating every county as a separate case gives p = 1.3e-249. But counties in the same state tend to resemble each other, so the better figure allows for that: p = 1.8e-7. The site tested 20,910 pairs, and testing so many turns up some flukes. The q-value allows for that too. For this pair it is 1.7e-248.

Do nearby places look alike?

Moran’s I measures how much nearby places look alike: 0 means no map pattern, and higher means neighbours are more similar. For the part of each county that the adjustment leaves unexplained, it is +0.51 (p = 0.001). That unexplained part still clusters on the map. So some regional factor shared by both measures is not accounted for.

Did they change together?

Not measurable: at least one of these is published for too few of the years a change needs (2014–2019 or 2019–2023), or for too few counties in both.

Related pairs

Association only. Nothing here shows that either measure changes the other. This describes counties, not the people in them. Two measures going together across places does not mean the same people have both. How the US county data works · Explore Returns reporting capital gains and Adult income rank of children raised poor here