Richard Florida examines the implications of newly released survey data from the Gallup Organization, which documents the country’s well-defined "religiosity belt" stretching across its southern tier.
Based on responses to questions about the importance of religion to respondent's everyday lives, and how often they attend religious services, the state-by-state results support the validity of the "Bible Belt" moniker. New England and Western states tend to be the least religious.
In delving deeper into the numbers with colleague Charlotta Mellander, from the Martin Prosperity Institute, Florida finds a number of interesting correlations between religiosity and political, economic, educational, and employment patterns:
- The most religious states generally skew Republican and the least religious trend Democrat
- Religiosity is higher in lower income states where poverty is prevalent
- Religiosity is higher in less educated states
- Religiosity is positively associated with the share of working class jobs
"Politicos on the left and right like to explain religious voters' proclivity purely in terms of values. But this misses a central point - that religion is inextricably bound up with the nation's underlying economic and geographic class divide," observes Florida.
FULL STORY: The Real Boundaries of the Bible Belt
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