Home › News ›

Lost Your Wallet? Hope You're in Utah.

Posted by: Alek Miller
Thanks to: Planet Money Blog
4 November 2009 - 9:00am

A new Gallup poll asks respondents whether they'd expect a lost wallet to be returned. The results indicate that trust in neighbors and well-being go hand-in-hand.

"Trust in one's neighbors is loosely associated with broad geographic region -- 8 of the 10 states where trust in one's neighbors is the highest are located in the West and Midwest. Six of the bottom-ranking trust states are in the South."

"States in which high percentages of respondents said 'yes' to the wallet question also tend to have higher levels of overall well-being."

Full Story: Utah, South Dakota Best Places in U.S. to Lose Your Wallet
Source: Gallup, October 30, 2009
»

Comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Score one for NY

Submitted by chrisinsobe on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 22:38.

Years ago, I (very stupidly) left my wallet containing about $1100 in cash plus all my ID and credit cards, etc., at a pay phone kiosk on the 8th floor of Bloomingdales in Mid-Manhattan. It turned up at Bloomies' lost and found office the next day, completely intact, money and all. Score one for NY.

Interesting about Utah though, because it's the pyramid scheme ("multi-level marketing") scam capital of the world. Utah is a major center for mortgage fraud as well. Perhaps in Utah there's an ethical distinction between personal (like stealing wallets) and slightly more impersonal crime (scams and fraud).

chrisinsobe

Breaking trust

Submitted by HRPlanner on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 10:04.

I had trust in my home state until both my credit card and bike were stolen in our state's largest city. It certainly didn't make me want to stay in that city.

Bottom ranking vs. top ranking states

Submitted by Michael Lewyn on Thu, 11/05/2009 - 07:46.

I couldn't help noticing that the bottom ranking states were mostly southern states with heavy African-American populations, while the top-ranking states were among America's whitest.

Does this mean that African-Americans are less trusting than whites?

Or does it mean that whites become less trusting in a multiracial society?

I don't know the answer, but it would be interesting to see crosstabs by race.

Bookmark and Share
“
The areas where we have severe blight and indications of more blight to come are basically the same as they ever were. How in the world are we ever going to move our community development selves into an alternative future that thinks differently about the challenges we face in our cities and low-income suburban and rural communities?
”