South Dakota by the numbers

[northernsoul]

http://nccp.org/state_detail_context_SD.html

Education and Work Preparation
Parental Education and Training
Percent of families with parents with no high school degree 7%
Percent of families with parents with no high school degree who are low income 76%

Percent of families with parents with only a high school degree 24%
Percent of families with parents with only a high school degree who are low income 49%

Percent of families with parents with education beyond high school
Percent of families with parents with education beyond high school who are low income 25%

Percent of adults with no high school degree 11%
Percent of adults with only a high school degree 34%
Percent of adults with some college or an associate's degree 33%
Percent of adults with a bachelor's degree or more 23%
English Proficiency
Percent of adults who do not speak English "very well" 2%

Work Attachment and Advancement
Child Care
Percent of low-income families with potential need for full-time child care 53%
Percent of low-income families with potential need for part-time child care 32%
Health Insurance
Percent of individuals under 65 covered by employer-based health insurance 61%
Percent of adults under 65 who are uninsured 16%
Percent of children who are uninsured 8%
Underemployment and Unemployment
Percent of part-time workers who want full-time work 7%
Official unemployment rate 4%

Income Adequacy
Wages
Percent of workers earning poverty-level wages 29%
Median hourly wage $11.48/hour
Percent of workers covered by a union 6%
Percent of children with at least one parent working full-time who are low income 26%
Income
Percent of families with low incomes 34%
Percent of families who are officially poor 16%
Median annual income for family of 4 $59,272
Median annual income for family of 4 as percent of poverty 317% FPL
State rank in income inequality (50 is most unequal) 2
Hardship
Percent of households that are food insecure 9%
Percent of households that are housing insecure 41%

Assets and Debt
Housing
Homeownership rate 71%
Median home value $95,523
Interest
Percent of federal tax returns that report taxable interest 53%
Percent of federal tax returns filed by low-income filers that report taxable interest 39%
Dividends
Percent of federal tax returns that report dividend income 25%
Percent of federal tax returns filed by low-income filers that report dividend income 16%
Debt
Bankruptcy rate 1 filing per 112 households

[peacebird]

1. yep - a passle of unwanted babies is just what the state needs.....

:sarcasm:

[existentialist]

2. About the numbers that you site

Most of them seem about right, except perhaps the unemployment figures, I think unemployment is a bit higher than stated.

What the figures that you provide omit, however, is the discrepancy between Indian South Dakota, and non Indian South Dakota.

About 9% of South Dakota's population are Indian, and the education and employment figures are far worse on South Dakota's Indian Reservations. A few years ago an independent church group came out with a per capita income per county nationwide. Four of the ten counties with the lowest per capita income were Indian Reservation counties in South Dakota, including Shannon county, (second lowest), Todd County, Corson County, and Ziebach County. Several other reservation counties (including the one I am in (Dewey County) also came in very low. If I remember correctly, Ziebach County and Dewey County, the two counties that make up the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation were the seventh and twenty-seventh poorest counties per capita nationwide. Unemployment here at that time was running about 70%, and I know that it was worse on Pine Ridge and Rosebud.

[northernsoul]

3. thank you for the additional insight

I know that Pine Ridge represents some of the worst concentrations of poverty in the U.S., but I couldn't quickly find any reliable numbers to demonstrate that.

[Charlie Brown]

4. SD is a microcosm of the Republican Party

It's a wonder that people like Daschle and even Tim Johnson could ever get elected from that base.

[frogmarch]

5. SoDak is a poor state because

the majority of voters there, being republicans, are too stupid to know whose fault it is that they're poor and keep voting the fascist dickweeds back into office.

I had an abortion in Rapid City before abortion was legalized in SoDak. My doctor in Deadwood, where my husband and I lived at the time with our three young kids, sent me to a RC gynocologist who performed abortions, because the Deadwood hospital was a Catholic establishment and wouldn't allow them. (Other doctors in the state performed abortions but most called them D and Cs.) At the Rapid City clinic where I had the abortion, anti-abortion groups picketed constantly, but there were always groups of pro-choice people there to hold them at bay and keep them out of the faces of women entering the clinic. These pro-choice lifeguards were amazing. (I was so impressed that I later became one.)

Abortion won't be stopped in South Dakota forever. If no doctors there will perform them anymore for fear of being fined and imprisoned, women seeking abortions will go to other states...or resort to other means to rid themselves of unwanted pregnancies.

Shame on anti-abortion supporters! Who the hell do they think they are that they can dictate what a woman can do with her body? What a bunch of arrogant morons.

[BlueIris]

8. You're being generous calling them arrogant morons.

ACK! I almost spelled it "morans." They're rubbing off on me! Ignorance is contagious!

They're big, fat, ugly, disgusting, diseased misogynists. M-I-S-O-G-Y-N-I-S-T-S. No, they don't know they are, because their parents and pastors raised them to remain too stupid to learn about that concept or understand its definition, but they still are. Don't be afraid to call a spade a spade.

[frogmarch]

9. I hear ya, Blue Iris

and I agree. They're big, fat, ugly, disgusting, diseased misogynists.

And assholes to boot.

There. I feel better now. :thumbsup:

[BlueIris]

10. You have a lovely screenname, by the by.

Mine comes from the name of my favorite soap. Yours is...I really like Joe Wilson.

[Democrats_win]

6. SoDak and Delaware are famous for usury credit card rates.

Dems will probably remember the Frontline Series: Secret History of the Credit Card.

That program explains how SoDak changed its laws to allow usury (unfairly high) interest rates.

Wikipedia says "Usury (in the original sense of any interest) is scripturally and doctrinally forbidden in many religions."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury

Ironic, isn't it? These crooks would do this while causing such suffering throughout America by allowing usury. I believe that the other 48 states outlaw overly high interest rates.

[Rockholm]

7. Home value $95K?

You might be able to buy a parking space in Boston for that!

[northernsoul]

11. I'd rather live in that parking space, though!

SD is a beautiful state with a lot of good people that has been overrun by idiots and sociopaths - I don't think I could live there and keep my mental health intact.