11 of the 12 lowest median household income states were part of the Confederacy.

Factual Questions
1

US census numbers, 2010, median household income by state
The 12 lowest states are:
Alabama
Arkansas
Georgia
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Montana
North Carolina
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
West Virginia

All except for Montana were part of the Confederacy.
All of the confederacy except Virgiania, Florida and maybe you can count Missouri is on that list.

How are these related?
Is the current low household income a legacy of the damage done in the Civil War to this area? It is because of the large numbers of freed slaves (who had not wealth or income) in this part of the US? Is it a left over a putative measures taken against the South? Something else?

2

“Correlation is not causation” always comes up in questions like this, so it may as well be mentioned now.

That said, the fundamental economic factors that lead to the South’s defeat - lower industrialization, limited transportation networks, narrow economic base, labor force discrimination - didn’t end with the surrender at Appomattox and continued to plague the South well into the late 20th century. Such structural factors are where I’d start looking for an explanation.

3

I think cause and effect run the other way actually. The Civil War was caused by tension between the agrarian South and the industrialized North, and its turned out that the economics of industrialization and urbanization have been a lot more favorable then those of agrarianism.

So I think the difference in prosperity would’ve been present even if the Civil War hadn’t happened. Indeed, without the civil war forcing an end to slavery, I suspect the South would’ve been even slower to modernize, and the disparity would be more pronounced.

4

The whole point of West Virginia is that it wasn’t part of the Confederacy.

You’re missing Texas.

5

I don’t have cites for this but I would say that there are reasons you don’t see Virginia, Texas, and Florida on that list. They had other industries that helped to boost them over their poorer neighbors. Once they are ahead, it is easier to stay ahead.

For Virginia, it was the large amount of federal business and jobs (Northern Virginia and Norfolk), for Texas it was oil and associated industry, and Florida had tourism and international business (especially to Latin America).

6

In the nineteenth century the southern states chose to have an agrarian economy because it was profitable via the use of cheap labor. The northern states chose to go with an industrialized economy.

But while agriculture and industry may have been running side by side in the nineteenth century, industry pulled way ahead in the twentieth century. The southern states backed the wrong economic sector.

7

The Civil War wasn’t just about slavery. One of the other big issues was control of the country. You had the northern industrialists pitted against the southern agriculturalists. What was good for one was often bad for the other, and one of the things that really fueled the fire for the tensions leading up to the war was the fact that, much like today, rather than both sides coming together and working out their differences, instead whatever side happened to be in power beat the other side into submission with their majority voting power. For example, when the northern industrialists took control of congress, they enacted tariffs that helped their industrial economy but hurt the southern agriculturalists. In the 1830s, battles over these tariffs almost erupted into war all by themselves.

So imagine that you are a Southern plantation owner after the war. You are the backbone of the Southern economy. Your operating costs have gone up dramatically, since you now have to pay your formerly free labor force. The demand for your crops has dropped dramatically because of the war and its resulting devastation. Not only that, but the northern industrialists now control the government, and they aren’t doing squat to help out the southern agricultural way of life. In fact, they are doing just the opposite. They are doing everything they can to help out industry, which is hurting agriculture. The trade tariffs and policies make your goods significantly less attractive to the Europeans, so now you don’t have a demand for your crops here at home and you don’t have a demand abroad either. So your costs are up and your income is down. You are screwed. What can you do? You can’t build a factory and become an industrialist because all of your money was in your plantation and that is now worthless. You can’t get aid from the government to help your plantation because that would hurt the industrial north and you no longer have the political and economic influence in government to fight them.

There’s no easy way out, and that is what those southern states had to deal with. And, as the country became more and more industrial, it only got worse. With their economy and wealth destroyed, the South couldn’t build factories at a pace to keep up with the north, and they couldn’t rely on their old agricultural base either. So, they continued to lag behind, as they slowly recovered from the war and slowly rebuilt their wealth. The economic turmoil of the early 20th century didn’t help, and when the country geared up for World War II the South again lagged behind simply because they had always lagged behind industrially. So after the war, when the economic boom was caused by our huge increase in manufacturing ability, the south still lagged behind because they hadn’t been able to build up as much during the war.

Once you get behind, it’s hard to catch up.

8

I grew up in West Virginia, and that is a completely separate case. West Virginia’s economy was very heavily founded in the steel mills and coal mines. Unfortunately, West Virginia’s coal is high in sulfur, which makes it very undesirable to burn due to EPA emissions rules. Steel has faced very stiff competition. The state’s leadership was somewhat foolish in that they always seemed to expect the coal mines and steel mills to rebound, and when that didn’t happen, the state’s economy tanked.

That’s why I don’t live there any more. It got too hard to find a job.

9

I don’t recall which history book I read it in, but I remember the author was quoting someone who lived during the civil war saying that the north was fighting ‘with one hand tied behind its back’ because the north didn’t have to resort to some of the extremes the south did. Here is something similar.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/g/gallagher-confederate.html

So the south was already economically behind back before the civil war.

10

I don’t believe Kentucky was a confederate state. Seem to remember seeing a plaque in Louisville saying it was a Union state.

11

Kentucky originally tried to be neutral in the conflict. Then confederate troops marched in, and Kentucky asked for Union help in getting them back out. The Confederacy actually set up their own Kentucky state government, but they never fully took control of the state and they were eventually driven back out.

So technically it was a Union state. “Never quite fully controlled either way” might be a better description.

12

[QUOTE=Abraham Lincoln]
I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky!
[/QUOTE]

13

Under representation in the House of Representatives.
I wonder if there is also a correlation between being a poor state and having missile silos. :slight_smile:

14

The problem with the claim that the civil war was between agriculturists and industrialists is that the western states, that were all as agricultural as the southern states, were solidly pro-Union.

The support a state had for the confederate cause was pretty much equal to how many slaves it had. Slave-holding states were pro-Confederate. Non-slave-holding states were pro-Union. Some states were mixed and in those states the slave-holding sections were pro-Confederate and the non-slave-holding sections were pro-Union.

As for tariffs, this was before there were things like income tax. Tariffs were the main revenue source for a government. If you were going to have a government you were going to have a tariff. And sure it favored the industrial north that the tariff was placed on industrial products - but that’s what the United States imported. We didn’t import agricultural products so there would be no revenue from putting a tariff on them.

The Confederates knew all this even if they complained about it. One of the first things they did when they declared their independence was enact a tariff of their own - they needed the revenue just like the Union government did.

15

Oklahoma is also a bit of a different case and never actually joined the CSA. It was a very split situation rather than being truly Confederate, which led to a massive internal civil war that wreaked havoc on Indian Territory*.

However, because of the Confederate support, the tribes were forced to make major concessions under Reconstruction. Since Oklahoma was still frontier, there wasn’t an industrial base, and the terms of Reconstruction (land for freed slaves, giving up half the territory, etc.) were pretty devastating. And a lot of the internal resources (mineral rights, etc.) were lost to outsiders during this period.

Then there’s that whole Bureau of Indian Affairs thing - it’s amazing how massive corruption and intentional destruction of your culture and population can set you back in economic development.

In addition, although the Territory had never built up a big plantation system, the Reconstruction setup and BIA rules led to a huge influx of tenant farmers, aka sharecroppers, in early statehood. Which was not a very productive economic model for the 20th century. With everyone on 40 acres, very few could do more than survive, much less accumulate the capital to industrialize.

On our own heads was the 1921 riot in Tulsa, which destroyed the Greenwood District, the wealthiest black community in the country at the time.

And Oklahoma retains a rural outlook which has been rather resistant to the culture needed to become an economic powerhouse. That is changing, though slowly.
*The federal government had pulled all troops out of the Territory early on, which let the Confederacy forces take over the abandoned forts and put a lot of pressure on the tribes. The 5CT did hold slaves and had that in common with the Confederates.

Although the leaders of the Five Civilized Tribes joined the Confederacy, other tribes joined the Union. In addition, many 5CT tribal members joined the Union army (see Indian Home Guard) - the Cherokee had almost equal numbers fighting on either side. Lots of damage to civilians and property in a vicious internal civil war.

16

It’s primarily due to the other states having greater lobbying power, thus creating a wide disparity in the median incomes of these two groups…and it’s about time someone did something. State’s like New York, Florida, California and Texas have to realize that their 8% controls most of the wealth in this country.

I am the 92%. WE ARE THE 92%!!

17

I 2nd on Virginia sucking the Federal teat. Something that rural Virginians conveniently ignore when they brag about how low their state sales/income taxes are (relative to other states). At the same time pissing and moaning how evil Big Government is. :rolleyes:

18

Part of it is a long-term trend which is only now reversing. Whatever might have happened, in actual history the South was utterly devastated by the Civil War, and that led to ongoing conditions which were never entirely healed. Several section of the South were somewhat bypassed by industrialization, simply by being of little interest for manufacturing and off the beaten path for trade. Some states, like Mississippi, still have that issue. They just don’t have as many strengths geographically. Some river towns, like Memphis, became poorer as the importance of river travel fell.

However, I can think of a good reason the trend is reversing and now starting the other way: Air Conditioning.

No, really. It gets damn hot down here in the summertime. You do not want to do work during midday and you do not want to be anywhere without a good stiff breeze. This once affected everything in the south, from industry to daily commerce. However, that is changing and more businesses are moving south from the rust belt states. Since we tend ot have a good work ethic, low unionization rates, and enthuastic government support, we are growing rapidly. Still, a lot of mor rural regions just aren’t going to be terribly wealthy.

19

Yeah, I dunno about the deep South, but IME the damn yankees :wink: that come visit here from the northeast are always astounded at how spread out everything is and how low the population density is.

“So what town are we in now?”
“It’s still Oklahoma City.”

It’s really a whole different dynamic for industry. They’re starting to like it. :smiley:

20

At first blush that reason sounds silly. But thinking about it, and being a resident of the deep south myself, I think that may be a much bigger factor than most people would think. That would mean the south was at a significant disadvantage (in addition to all the other problems folks here have listed) until AC became something common rather than a nice to have or a luxury, which occurred in the 70’s give or take?