Private jobs and Motor vehicle theft rate
Where Private jobs is higher, Motor vehicle theft rate tends to be higher. The link is weak: +0.32 across 2,276 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 36 states, the middle value of the link is +0.60.
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
Private jobs
Private-sector jobs, averaged over the year, as employers report them to the state's unemployment insurance program. Jobs are counted where the job is, not where the worker lives.
BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages · BLS QCEW annual averages, private, all industries, annual_avg_emplvl
Motor vehicle theft rate
Thefts of cars, trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles in the year, per 100,000 residents, from the FBI. It counts only crimes reported to police or found by them, so crimes nobody reports are missing. For a state, the figure is the FBI's estimate, which fills in for police agencies that did not report. For a county, it is only what the agencies reported, and it is shown only where agencies that reported for all 12 months serve at least 90% of the people who live there.
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program (Crime Data Explorer) · FBI Crime Data Explorer: states, estimated_crimes motor_vehicle_theft; counties, Return A master file, actual offenses
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 private jobs
| Private jobs, per 1,000 residents | Motor vehicle theft rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| King County, TX | 1809.52 | 0 |
| Bristol Bay Borough, AK | 1268.79 | 227 |
| Upton County, TX | 941.43 | 64.8 |
| Teton County, WY | 885.35 | 30.1 |
| Montour County, PA | 842.52 | 33.2 |
| Lowest | ||
| Long County, GA | 30.49 | 22.6 |
| Menominee County, WI | 37.83 | 0 |
| Elliott County, KY | 40.35 | 27.4 |
| Sioux County, ND | 47.77 | 0 |
| Corson County, SD | 49.75 | 22.5 |
By motor vehicle theft rate
| Private jobs, per 1,000 residents | Motor vehicle theft rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| St. Louis city, MO | 676.37 | 2,219 |
| Baltimore city, MD | 467.54 | 1,966 |
| Shelby County, TN | 463.20 | 1,873 |
| Orleans Parish, LA | 429.45 | 1,842 |
| Alameda County, CA | 415.08 | 1,842 |
| Lowest | ||
| San Juan County, CO | 465.22 | 0 |
| Sierra County, CA | 99.60 | 0 |
| Wrangell City and Borough, AK | 263.06 | 0 |
| Menominee County, WI | 37.83 | 0 |
| Lexington city, VA | 548.65 | 0 |
States
By private jobs
| Private jobs, per 1,000 residents | Motor vehicle theft rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| District of Columbia | 781.99 | 1,061 |
| Massachusetts | 457.75 | 120 |
| North Dakota | 446.89 | 222 |
| Minnesota | 442.04 | 267 |
| New Hampshire | 432.60 | 64.2 |
| Lowest | ||
| West Virginia | 308.99 | 91.7 |
| Mississippi | 315.82 | 191 |
| New Mexico | 320.93 | 519 |
| Oklahoma | 336.12 | 265 |
| Alabama | 336.39 | 221 |
By motor vehicle theft rate
| Private jobs, per 1,000 residents | Motor vehicle theft rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| District of Columbia | 781.99 | 1,061 |
| Nevada | 431.30 | 681 |
| Washington | 387.95 | 680 |
| Colorado | 418.69 | 659 |
| Maryland | 355.13 | 557 |
| Lowest | ||
| New Hampshire | 432.60 | 64.2 |
| Idaho | 379.08 | 77.3 |
| Maine | 392.76 | 79.9 |
| West Virginia | 308.99 | 91.7 |
| Vermont | 394.36 | 92.5 |
Metro areas
By private jobs
| Private jobs, per 1,000 residents | Motor vehicle theft rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Jackson, WY-ID | 691.04 | 23.4 |
| Port Lavaca, TX | 601.54 | 94.7 |
| Williston, ND | 599.75 | 301 |
| Elkhart-Goshen, IN | 595.57 | 191 |
| Jasper, IN | 587.82 | 34.4 |
| Lowest | ||
| Zapata, TX | 123.84 | 0 |
| Susanville, CA | 128.10 | 228 |
| Shelton, WA | 131.51 | 230 |
| Rio Grande City-Roma, TX | 136.01 | 91.2 |
| Picayune, MS | 141.74 | 131 |
By motor vehicle theft rate
| Private jobs, per 1,000 residents | Motor vehicle theft rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Memphis, TN-MS-AR | 404.19 | 1,420 |
| Pueblo, CO | 300.94 | 1,235 |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 446.84 | 1,008 |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 462.52 | 979 |
| Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO | 462.08 | 940 |
| Lowest | ||
| Zapata, TX | 123.84 | 0 |
| Lexington, NE | 374.48 | 0 |
| Columbus, IN | 530.18 | 0.701 |
| Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin, FL | 339.09 | 2.27 |
| Lewisburg, PA | 351.67 | 8.75 |
Counties furthest from the pattern
Compared with the straight line that best fits all 2,283 counties: the five with far more motor vehicle theft rate than their private jobs would suggest, and the five with far less.
| Private jobs, per 1,000 residents | Motor vehicle theft rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Above the line | ||
| St. Louis city, MO | 676.37 | 2,219 |
| Baltimore city, MD | 467.54 | 1,966 |
| Shelby County, TN | 463.20 | 1,873 |
| Alameda County, CA | 415.08 | 1,842 |
| Orleans Parish, LA | 429.45 | 1,842 |
| Below the line | ||
| King County, TX | 1809.52 | 0 |
| Teton County, WY | 885.35 | 30.1 |
| Upton County, TX | 941.43 | 64.8 |
| Montour County, PA | 842.52 | 33.2 |
| Bristol Bay Borough, AK | 1268.79 | 227 |
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 | +0.420 | 2,276 counties reporting both |
| After adjusting for density, income and education | +0.320 | the part of the link that is not just how urban, rich and educated a place is |
| Also adjusting for population size | +0.254 | size taken out as well as density |
| Also comparing only within each state | +0.251 | 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 | +0.187 | the adjusted link for the average resident rather than the average county. With this weighting, the data counts for about 227 equally weighted counties |
| Middle value inside single states | +0.604 | the link worked out inside each of 36 states with at least 20 counties reporting |
| Using ranks, after adjusting | +0.339 | 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 = 3.2e-55. But counties in the same state tend to resemble each other, so the better figure allows for that: p = 0.000. The site tested 29,403 pairs, and testing so many turns up some flukes. The q-value allows for that too. For this pair it is 2.2e-54.
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 +0.24 (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?
The figures above compare counties at one moment. This asks a different question: where private jobs rose most, did motor vehicle theft ratemove too? Each county’s change is compared with the average change in its own state. That takes out ups and downs that hit a whole region at once. Each change is the gap between two estimates that both contain some error. That error pulls these links towards zero, so a weak one is weak partly for that reason. The q column shows whether a link could be a fluke, allowing for the many pairs tested: 0.05 or less means it is unlikely to be chance.
| Period | Counties | Change together | Within states | q |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014–2019 the main test: each Census survey figure averages five years, and these two do not overlap; before the pandemic | 2,013 | +0.05 | +0.06 | 0.270 |
| 2019–2023 a repeat check: its two five-year survey figures both include 2019, and it covers the COVID years | 1,874 | -0.07 | -0.05 | 0.382 |
Over the main period, any link between the changes could easily be chance. How change is measured.
Related pairs
- Homicide rate and Motor vehicle theft rate — +0.47
- Share of days with unhealthy air and Private jobs — +0.43
- Motor vehicle theft rate and Homicide rate, annual — +0.43
- Firearm fatalities and Motor vehicle theft rate — +0.39
- Share White, not Hispanic and Motor vehicle theft rate — -0.37
- Average test score and Motor vehicle theft rate — -0.36
- Share foreign-born and Private jobs — +0.36
- Private jobs and Robbery rate — +0.35
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 Private jobs and Motor vehicle theft rate