Friday, February 02, 2018

Educational Attainment and State Income - ACS PUMS

Original Article

Summary goes here!

Educational Attainment is a measure that often used to gauge the intellectual power of a region. As a nation, it was concerned that the United State could fall behind in global economic competition and this caused various movement and initiatives try to increase the number of college graduates in the United States. While working on other projects, the author suspects the linkage between educational attainment and a state's income. This is the author's first attempt in linking a state's per capita income to the educational attainment of the state.

This article using the American Community Survey's PUMS data released by US Census Bureau to compare the educational attainment of each state. The advantage of the PUMS data is its ability to produce statistic results that is not directly available from pre-prepared tables offered by Census' website. In our case, we are interested in the educational attainment of adult population with age between 22 and 64 years old in each state.

For ranking, we will rank states with several educational attainment configurations.  See the following tables for detail.

As to the relation between per capita income and educational attainment, I will just show three quick charts at this point - it deserves closer analysis later.
* The per capita income data obtained from List of U.S. states by income on Feb. 2, 2018. The income data is derived from 2014-10 ACS data. * In general, per capita income concerns people of age 15 or older which isn't really match the age range we used in calculating the educational attainment. But assuming that the income contributed from age 15 to 22 are limited and that the adding of age 65 to 99 do change the fact much (say, the retirement income of graduate degree holder still higher than that of bachelor degree holder), the result could still be representative. A finer investigation of the situation will follow.  

For Bachelor-and-above degree holder


For Graduate degree holder


For Doctor and Professional degree holder
Of these three charts, the District of Columbia (the right most point) shows a very high income when comparing to other states. All of the three charts show high correlation values of 0.91, 0.86, and 0.79 respectively. Without District of Columbia, it brings these correlation coefficients closer. This basically reflect the fact that in two of these charts, the District of Columbia is out of line with other states. Observing the charts carefully, you can conclude that at District of Columbia, there are higher percent of master, doctor and professionals degree holders and that is why the income is high. However, these degree holders did not contribute, proportionately, as much as those in other states.
* Correlation is also done for associate degree and above and it shows lower correlation values than that of bachelor and above with or without District of Columbia.

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Ranking states by percent of bachelor-and-above degree holder
Stt Nm2010 Rank2011 Rank2015 Rank2016 Rank2010 %2011 %2015 %2016 %
District of Columbia111152.5%53.2%57.4%58.3%
Massachusetts222241.6%41.7%43.0%43.7%
Connecticut333337.5%37.8%39.3%39.8%
New Jersey444437.3%37.4%38.9%39.5%
Maryland555537.2%37.3%38.7%39.0%
Colorado666636.5%36.7%37.9%38.3%
Virginia777735.4%35.7%37.4%37.9%
Vermont8881034.8%35.5%36.6%36.1%
New York9109834.5%34.8%36.2%36.6%
New Hampshire10910934.5%34.8%36.1%36.6%
Minnesota1111111133.5%33.7%35.4%35.6%
Rhode Island1212131332.6%32.9%33.2%33.8%
Illinois1313121232.6%32.8%34.2%34.7%
Washington1414141431.2%31.3%32.6%33.3%
Kansas1515151631.1%31.2%31.9%32.3%
North Dakota1618222230.3%29.7%29.9%30.3%
California1716181930.1%30.1%31.0%31.5%
Hawaii1817191830.1%29.9%30.9%31.5%
Nebraska1919161529.8%29.7%31.7%32.4%
Oregon2020212129.3%29.4%30.4%31.1%
Pennsylvania2121171729.3%29.4%31.0%31.7%
Delaware2223202028.9%28.5%30.8%31.4%
Montana2322282928.8%29.2%28.7%28.9%
Utah2424232428.7%28.4%29.5%29.9%
Georgia2525262728.0%28.2%29.1%29.6%
Wisconsin2627252327.6%27.6%29.3%29.9%
Maine2726242627.6%28.0%29.5%29.7%
Iowa2828292827.4%27.4%28.7%29.2%
North Carolina2929272527.3%27.4%29.1%29.8%
South Dakota3031323127.2%27.3%27.7%28.5%
Missouri3130303027.0%27.3%28.5%28.8%
Michigan3232313226.7%26.7%27.9%28.3%
Florida3333353526.6%26.4%27.3%27.7%
Alaska3434363626.4%26.2%27.0%27.5%
Arizona3537373726.1%25.8%26.7%27.1%
Texas3636343426.0%26.2%27.4%27.9%
Ohio3735333326.0%26.2%27.4%28.0%
South Carolina3839393824.8%24.7%25.8%26.6%
New Mexico3940434324.7%24.4%24.6%24.8%
Idaho4038414224.7%25.0%25.3%25.5%
Indiana4141424124.1%24.2%25.3%25.9%
Tennessee4243383924.0%24.1%26.0%26.5%
Wyoming4342404023.6%24.2%25.7%25.9%
Oklahoma4444444423.3%23.4%24.5%24.7%
Alabama4545454522.9%22.9%23.9%24.4%
Kentucky4646464621.8%21.7%23.2%23.7%
Nevada4747484821.6%21.6%22.0%22.2%
Louisiana4848474721.5%21.6%22.8%23.2%
Mississippi4950505120.1%20.1%20.6%20.8%
Arkansas5049494920.1%20.4%21.8%22.1%
West Virginia5151515018.8%19.2%20.5%20.9%
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Ranking states by percent of graduate degree holder
Stt Nm2010 Rank2011 Rank2015 Rank2016 Rank2010 %2011 %2015 %2016 %
District of Columbia111126.5%26.7%29.8%30.6%
Massachusetts222216.4%16.5%17.3%17.6%
Maryland333315.6%15.6%16.4%16.6%
Connecticut444415.2%15.4%16.0%16.2%
Virginia555513.7%13.8%14.8%15.1%
New York666613.7%13.8%14.3%14.4%
New Jersey777713.2%13.2%13.7%14.0%
Vermont889912.3%12.5%12.7%12.8%
Colorado998812.0%12.1%12.7%13.0%
Rhode Island1011121211.7%11.8%12.0%12.2%
New Hampshire1110101011.6%11.9%12.6%12.6%
Illinois1212111111.4%11.4%12.1%12.3%
Delaware1313131310.9%10.7%11.4%11.6%
Washington1414151510.4%10.5%11.0%11.2%
Pennsylvania1515141410.3%10.4%11.1%11.3%
California1616171910.2%10.2%10.6%10.8%
Minnesota1717161610.0%10.1%10.9%11.0%
Oregon181818179.9%10.0%10.5%10.8%
New Mexico192021219.8%9.7%9.9%10.0%
Kansas201919189.8%9.9%10.5%10.8%
Michigan212223229.4%9.5%9.8%10.0%
Georgia222120209.4%9.5%10.1%10.4%
Hawaii232426269.4%9.3%9.4%9.6%
Missouri242322239.3%9.4%9.9%9.9%
Ohio252625278.9%9.0%9.4%9.6%
Alaska262524288.8%9.1%9.5%9.4%
Maine272729308.8%9.0%9.2%9.3%
Arizona282932318.8%8.6%9.0%9.2%
Utah293130298.6%8.5%9.0%9.3%
Nebraska303228248.6%8.5%9.3%9.7%
Wisconsin312831328.6%8.7%9.0%9.1%
Florida323033338.6%8.6%8.9%9.0%
North Carolina333327258.4%8.5%9.4%9.7%
Kentucky343534348.2%8.1%8.8%8.9%
Montana353437398.2%8.3%8.5%8.5%
South Carolina363739378.1%8.0%8.4%8.7%
Texas373636368.0%8.1%8.6%8.8%
Tennessee383835357.8%7.9%8.7%8.8%
Indiana394042427.8%7.7%8.0%8.1%
Iowa403938387.7%7.8%8.4%8.6%
Alabama414141407.6%7.7%8.1%8.3%
Wyoming424240417.4%7.6%8.1%8.2%
South Dakota434448457.2%7.1%7.0%7.4%
Idaho444343447.1%7.3%7.5%7.6%
North Dakota454746476.9%6.8%7.2%7.3%
Oklahoma464545466.9%6.9%7.3%7.4%
West Virginia474644436.8%6.8%7.4%7.7%
Nevada484851516.8%6.7%6.9%6.9%
Mississippi494950506.6%6.6%6.9%7.1%
Louisiana505049486.5%6.4%7.0%7.2%
Arkansas515147496.2%6.3%7.0%7.1%
* Data in the table are labeled with the data release year. For example, the '2016' actually cover the data collected between 2012 and 2016. The value is to be interpreted as the average between those years.

Observing the above table, it shows every single state listed, including District of Columbia, is making progresses in improving its educational attainment level. Ranking with the percent difference between the first and last available educational attainment level, it shows that District of Columbia leading the improvement with a change of 4.14% followed by Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Nebraska. Rounding up the top ten, here comes the Maryland, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Minnesota.
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Ranking states by percent of Doctor or Professional degree holder
Stt Nm2010 Rank2011 Rank2015 Rank2016 Rank2010 %2011 %2015 %2016 %
District of Columbia111110.9%10.8%11.0%11.2%
Maryland22334.9%4.9%4.9%4.9%
Massachusetts33224.8%4.8%5.0%5.1%
Connecticut44444.1%4.2%4.3%4.3%
New York55563.8%3.8%3.9%3.9%
Virginia66673.6%3.6%3.8%3.8%
New Jersey77783.6%3.6%3.7%3.7%
Vermont89853.3%3.3%3.6%3.9%
California9810103.3%3.3%3.3%3.4%
Rhode Island1010993.2%3.2%3.4%3.6%
Hawaii111518173.2%3.0%3.0%3.1%
Colorado121111113.1%3.1%3.3%3.3%
Pennsylvania131414143.1%3.0%3.1%3.2%
Delaware141615153.1%3.0%3.1%3.1%
Oregon151316163.1%3.1%3.0%3.1%
Illinois161213133.1%3.1%3.2%3.2%
New Mexico171822223.0%3.0%2.8%2.8%
Washington181717183.0%3.0%3.0%3.0%
Minnesota191912123.0%3.0%3.2%3.3%
New Hampshire202019202.8%2.8%3.0%2.9%
Nebraska212326232.7%2.6%2.7%2.7%
Florida222225262.7%2.6%2.7%2.7%
Georgia232121192.7%2.7%2.9%3.0%
Kansas242524242.6%2.6%2.7%2.7%
Alaska252420212.6%2.6%2.9%2.8%
Missouri262627272.5%2.6%2.6%2.6%
Utah273031312.5%2.4%2.5%2.6%
Montana282737302.5%2.6%2.4%2.6%
Michigan292832332.5%2.5%2.5%2.5%
Ohio302933352.4%2.4%2.5%2.5%
Arizona313636362.4%2.3%2.4%2.5%
Wisconsin323538372.4%2.4%2.4%2.5%
Iowa333328282.4%2.4%2.6%2.6%
North Carolina343430292.4%2.4%2.5%2.6%
Maine353123252.4%2.4%2.7%2.7%
Tennessee363229342.4%2.4%2.5%2.5%
Kentucky373835382.3%2.3%2.4%2.5%
Texas383940392.3%2.3%2.3%2.3%
Idaho393741412.3%2.3%2.2%2.3%
South Dakota404047422.2%2.2%2.0%2.3%
Indiana414344452.2%2.1%2.1%2.1%
Louisiana424442402.2%2.1%2.2%2.3%
Wyoming434134322.1%2.2%2.5%2.5%
North Dakota444239442.1%2.1%2.3%2.2%
South Carolina454746462.1%2.1%2.1%2.1%
Alabama464643432.1%2.1%2.2%2.2%
Nevada474548492.1%2.1%2.0%2.0%
Oklahoma485045472.0%2.0%2.1%2.1%
Mississippi494951512.0%2.0%1.9%1.9%
West Virginia504849481.9%2.0%2.0%2.0%
Arkansas515150501.8%1.7%1.9%1.9%
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