Incarceration of children raised poor here and Poverty rate (model-based)
Counting counties equally, Incarceration of children raised poor here and Poverty rate (model-based) have a link of +0.14 across 1,986 counties, on a scale from −1 to +1. Giving bigger places more weight asks about the average resident rather than the average place, and it flips the link to -0.14. Neither figure is likely to be chance. So this is a real disagreement about who is being described.
Flips when bigger places count more
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
Incarceration of children raised poor here
The share of those same children, who grew up here with poor parents, who were in prison on census day in 2010.
Opportunity Atlas · Opportunity Insights jail_pooled_pooled_p25
Poverty rate (model-based)
The percentage of people in poverty, as an estimate from a statistical model, not a direct count. The Census Bureau combines survey answers with tax and food-assistance records, to get figures that small counties' survey answers cannot give on their own.
Census SAIPE · Census SAIPE SAEPOVRTALL_PT
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 incarceration of children raised poor here
| Incarceration of children raised poor here | Poverty rate (model-based) | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Menominee County, WI | 0.0977 | 27.4% |
| Oglala Lakota County, SD | 0.0889 | 37.1% |
| Pulaski County, GA | 0.0805 | 23% |
| Charlottesville city, VA | 0.0751 | 19.6% |
| Portsmouth city, VA | 0.0658 | 18.7% |
| Lowest | ||
| Kent County, RI | 0.0033 | 9% |
| Washington County, RI | 0.00337 | 9.1% |
| Providence County, RI | 0.0047 | 12.7% |
| Essex County, NY | 0.00546 | 13% |
| Huron County, MI | 0.00559 | 14.3% |
By poverty rate (model-based)
| Incarceration of children raised poor here | Poverty rate (model-based) | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| East Carroll Parish, LA | 0.0249 | 46.5% |
| Bolivar County, MS | 0.0192 | 38.7% |
| Lee County, AR | 0.0376 | 38.7% |
| Clay County, KY | 0.013 | 37.2% |
| Oglala Lakota County, SD | 0.0889 | 37.1% |
| Lowest | ||
| Douglas County, CO | 0.0151 | 3.7% |
| Loudoun County, VA | 0.0239 | 4.1% |
| Calumet County, WI | 0.0201 | 4.6% |
| Carver County, MN | 0.00576 | 4.6% |
| Boone County, IN | 0.0342 | 4.7% |
States — Incarceration of children raised poor here is not published for states
By poverty rate (model-based)
| Incarceration of children raised poor here | Poverty rate (model-based) | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Louisiana | — | 18.9% |
| Mississippi | — | 18.3% |
| New Mexico | — | 16.9% |
| West Virginia | — | 16.4% |
| Kentucky | — | 16.1% |
| Lowest | ||
| New Hampshire | — | 7.3% |
| Utah | — | 9% |
| Minnesota | — | 9.2% |
| Colorado | — | 9.4% |
| New Jersey | — | 9.7% |
Metro areas
By incarceration of children raised poor here
| Incarceration of children raised poor here | Poverty rate (model-based) | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Thomaston, GA | 0.06 | 17.5% |
| Summerville, GA | 0.0555 | 20.7% |
| Waco, TX | 0.0552 | 16.6% |
| Sherman-Denison, TX | 0.0546 | 10.9% |
| Savannah, GA | 0.0541 | 13.2% |
| Lowest | ||
| Dickinson, ND | 0.00571 | 9.79% |
| Oneonta, NY | 0.00584 | 14.2% |
| New Ulm, MN | 0.00603 | 8.1% |
| Houghton, MI | 0.00631 | 16.8% |
| Wheeling, WV-OH | 0.00639 | 15% |
By poverty rate (model-based)
| Incarceration of children raised poor here | Poverty rate (model-based) | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Cleveland, MS | 0.0192 | 38.7% |
| Greenville, MS | 0.0334 | 35.5% |
| Forrest City, AR | 0.0326 | 34.3% |
| Gallup, NM | 0.0181 | 34.3% |
| Selma, AL | 0.0177 | 31.4% |
| Lowest | ||
| Appleton, WI | 0.0223 | 5.93% |
| Manchester-Nashua, NH | 0.0195 | 6.5% |
| Lexington Park, MD | 0.0337 | 6.8% |
| Ogden, UT | 0.0265 | 7% |
| Red Wing, MN | 0.0127 | 7.3% |
Counties furthest from the pattern
Compared with the straight line that best fits all 1,986 counties: the five with far more poverty rate (model-based) than their incarceration of children raised poor here would suggest, and the five with far less.
| Incarceration of children raised poor here | Poverty rate (model-based) | |
|---|---|---|
| Above the line | ||
| East Carroll Parish, LA | 0.0249 | 46.5% |
| Bolivar County, MS | 0.0192 | 38.7% |
| Clay County, KY | 0.013 | 37.2% |
| Lee County, AR | 0.0376 | 38.7% |
| Knox County, KY | 0.0116 | 35% |
| Below the line | ||
| King George County, VA | 0.0642 | 6.3% |
| Stafford County, VA | 0.0437 | 5.3% |
| Boone County, IN | 0.0342 | 4.7% |
| Calvert County, MD | 0.0354 | 4.9% |
| Loudoun County, VA | 0.0239 | 4.1% |
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 | +0.211 | 1,986 counties reporting both |
| After adjusting for density, income and education | +0.144 | the part of the link that is not just how urban, rich and educated a place is |
| Also adjusting for population size | +0.142 | size taken out as well as density |
| Also comparing only within each state | +0.111 | each county is compared only with others in its own state, so this is no longer a comparison between states |
| Giving bigger counties more weight | -0.139 | the adjusted link for the average resident rather than the average county. With this weighting, the data counts for about 266 equally weighted counties |
| Middle value inside single states | +0.084 | the link worked out inside each of 32 states with at least 20 counties reporting |
| Using ranks, after adjusting | +0.148 | uses 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 = 1.0e-10. But counties in the same state tend to resemble each other, so the better figure allows for that: p = 0.012. 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 2.4e-10.
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 +0.49 (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
- Returns claiming the earned income credit and Poverty rate (model-based) — +0.71
- Poverty rate (model-based) and Homicide rate, annual — +0.56
- Children in single-parent households and Poverty rate (model-based) — +0.55
- Homicide rate and Poverty rate (model-based) — +0.55
- Poverty rate (model-based) and Average test score — -0.54
- Poverty rate (model-based) and Social connection score — -0.54
- Premature mortality and Poverty rate (model-based) — +0.52
- Years of potential life lost and Poverty rate (model-based) — +0.49
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 Incarceration of children raised poor here and Poverty rate (model-based)