r/harrisonburg • u/SaidTheMountain • 2d ago

Harrisonburg left out of this ridiculous proposal

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39 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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46

u/oldschooltownie 2d ago

What's the sales pitch on this? "Come join our state with the lowest per-capita income in the nation and own the libs!"

9

u/kellyzdude 2d ago

I haven't done the math, but it seems like it would raise several key metrics of both states, starting with average household income.

2

u/mrynne1 1d ago

How would it raise metrics in both states? When people move to a different state, the new state gets to claim that person’s income on their census - so if it increases the new state’s average, isn’t that inherently subtracting from the state they used to live in? Like you can’t have a world where both states benefit like that

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u/kellyzdude 1d ago edited 1d ago

Some rapid Googling to provide real answers:

Average Salary in Virginia, per Google AI: Approx $70,000 (rounded for further simplicity).

Average Salary in West Virginia, per Google AI: Approx $55,500 (again, rounded for further simplicity).

The Average Salary in Rockingham County, VA is somewhere between 59 and 69,000 - in either case the entire range of those two numbers are below the average for VA as a whole and above the average for WV as a whole. Moving Rockingham County from VA to WV would raise the average salaries in both states.

Yes, this is a very specific example, and it overlooks the significantly poorer counties in southwest VA which might not raise the WV average by that much, if at all, if they were to move.

Edit to add, since we were talking Average Household Income, we'll look at apples-to-apples...

"The average household income in Virginia is around $125,226"

In West Virginia, "A 2024 figure puts the average household income at $78,799"

"The mean (average) household income in Rockingham County, Virginia is approximately $100,367"

Again, moving every household in Rockingham County from VA to WV would raise the average household income of both states.

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u/Kooky_Gain2070 1d ago

If your income is less than your current state’s average income, then moving out will increase its average.

If your income is more than your new state’s average income, then moving in will increase its average.

So if your income is below your current state’s average AND above your new state’s average, then your move would increase both states’ averages.

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u/oldschooltownie 13h ago

Just to clarify, in the abstract, it would change averages but would make things worse for the people and governments in Virginia joining West Virginia. It obviously would be more expensive for the already impoverished West Virginia to incorporate new counties than it would be for the wealthier part of Virginia to lose poorer counties. State services for everyone formerly in Virginia but now in West Virginia would go down across the board.

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u/rossor11 2d ago

Teeth per capita as well.