Wealthiest and poorest religions

Using the General Social Survey data, I created the chart below to show the average family real income in 1986 dollars for each of the religions. Because of the GSS's relatively small sample size, large income buckets, and multi-year nature, the figures are only rough approximations.

Given the high correlation between being wealthy and being Republican, one would expect Jews to be the most Republican religion, but in fact they are the most Democratic religion, even more so than Baptists who come in a close second.

The people who created the GSS don't seem to think that Mormonism deserves mention as its own religion.

Religion	Average family income
Jewish	51,484
Episcopal	42,510
Presbytarian	39,715
Catholic	33,343
Lutheran	31,665
Methodist	31,229
Baptist	24,577

Comments

[Peter]

the most Democratic religion, even more so than Baptists who come in a close second

Baptists? Democratic? In what parallel universe?

[spungen]

Interesting. I would have thought that Lutherans and Methodists would fare better overall than Catholics. Maybe the result is skewed by a few Kennedy-type Catholics at the top. I wonder who does better, the Republican Catholics or the Democratic Catholics? Kennedys are Democrats, but so are Latinos.

[Dean]

I read somewhere (forgot where) about the seeming paradox that although Republicans have a higher average wealth than Democrats, Democratic states are wealthier than Republican states. The answer to that discrepancy has to do to the fact that higher income brackets in Democratic states tended to have similar party affiliation ratios to lower income brackets (hence, both are mostly Democratic), wheras in Republican states, the wealthier demographics skewed much more strongly Republican than those of lower wealth.

I wonder whether the high rate of Jewish affiliation with the Democratic party has a similar texture to the wealth distribution in red/blue states.

[Peter]

I wonder who does better, the Republican Catholics or the Democratic Catholics? Kennedys are Democrats, but so are Latinos.

A rapidly increasing percentage of (mainly poor, I suspect) Hispanics have left the Catholic church in favor of fundamentalist Protestant groups. You can't drive very far in any Hispanic neighborhood without seeing at least one Iglesia de Dios.

[Tex]

An oversized percentage of Jews live in New York, which has a high cost of living.

[Robert Hume]

Also, Catholics live near and in the big cities so that the most intelligent of them have better access to specialized high schools with advanced curricula. These feed very good colleges. Most Protestants live in less well-endowed places.

(And also, many Protestants, including Episcopalians, are black; are these statistics of whites only?)

This is parallel to the high achievements of Jews who settled in New York and took advantage of the big city institutions and faculty created by Protestants, most of whom left (fled) town for less well-endowed towns and suburbs. Of course the Jewish high IQs no doubt also helped greatly.

[Half Sigma]

Even when you look at only white non-Hispanic Catholics, the order of the religions remains the same: Jewish, Episcopal, Presbytarian, then Catholic.

[Jody]

Echoing Robert, I wonder what it would be if cost-of-living were factored in. I'm also curious as to where Muslims, Hindus, and atheists shake out in the list (I'm betting high.)

For fun, here's a site that breaks down religious affiliation by county.

[The Superfluous]

Episcopalian used to be a codeword for the WASP 'establishment.'

[Steve Sailer]

Lots of ambitious young men who migrated to New York City in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries from rural and small town America to make their fortunes converted to Episcopalianism so they could be seen in church by other business leaders. (Many were previously Congregationalists or other ex-Puritan sects.)