Right to Work" snark hunt

I noticed that the "Right to Work" controversy has come up again in another thread. As some of you know, one of my "hobby horses" is econometrics, or the application of statistics to discussions of this type where objective data is available. [FWIW -- if objective data is *NOT* available, it is theology.]

For those of us that may be interested, I downloaded a list of the states, and dummy/binary coded the "right to work status" as 1 = "right to work", 0 = no "right to work, and from other sources downloaded family poverty rates, median household income and a measure of income distribution equality called the gini coefficient.

To download a copy of the data set click on

Some quick spreadsheet work shows the un-nuanced data, i.e. "out of the box," not adjusted for anything, i.e. not population weighted, no logit/probit transformations etc. indicates the following:

Statement: Right to work states have higher family poverty rates. For RTW v family poverty rate in percent R square = 0.1153072619 F-RATIO = 1.42732643240265E-046 F-dist = 1.0000 Conclusion. NO SALE

Statement: Right to Work states have lower family incomes. For RTW v median family income R square = 0.1569634784 F-RATIO = 9.39707857939395E-192 F-dist = 1.0000 Conclusion: NO SALE

Statement: Right to Work states have higher disparity in income distribution as measured by the gini coefficient. For RTW v state gini coefficient R square = 1.02125374946014E-005 F-RATIO = 5.96807933525614E-058 F-dist = 1.0000 Conclusion: NO SALE

Cautions: As the calculations were not population weighted, the larger states such as California may have "swamped" the results, but this is highly doubtful as the split is c. 40% of the population lives in RTW states and 60% do not. D.C., P.R., the territories, etc. were omitted from the calculations. Not adjusted for family size. Other statistical tests such Kruskal?Wallis as may give different results. [Feel free to download data and "knock yourself out."]

(you may find my LFTR01 proposal {pdf and odt format} in the drop box of interest also -- feel free to browse website)

File uses the free OpenOffice suite which you can download at

For more info on R-squared to start see

For info on the gini coefficient see

Google on either or both terms for more than you want to know.

==>Now lets move on to something than means more than a p*** hole in the snow before the politicians/banksters bring the economy down around our ears.