Sunday, November 15, 2020

The Reality of Demographics

This relates to the need to eliminate the Electoral College, but also the disproportionate power of the U.S. Senate. It's from the Twitter feed of fiction author Sandra Newman:

People like to say states like Wyoming need to be over-represented in government because they're "rural." We imagine this means people there work on the land. In reality, only 3,065 people in Wyoming work in agriculture. 30,171 work in retail. 36,871 work in hotels and restaurants.

Fun fact: In the "rural" state of Wyoming, more people work in the arts and entertainment (5,625) than in agriculture (3,065). This is also true of Kansas (agriculture: 11,657; arts: 14,704). I haven't checked, but I'd expect this is true of every state.

There is no state now where a large percentage of people work in traditional rural occupations. Everywhere, most people work in health care, hospitality, construction, manufacturing, retail, finance, real estate.

Finally, only 35.2% of Wyoming's population lives in rural areas. Only four states are more than 40% rural: Maine (61%), Vermont (61%), West Virginia (51%), and Mississippi (51%). Of those, only Maine and Vermont are among the ten smallest states [by population].

So we're being told that people in small red states, who mostly live in towns and cities and work in the same sectors as everyone else, have different needs that necessitate more government representation. Could someone please explain what these needs are, apart from being white?


No comments: