More Taxes Do Not Reduce Childhood Poverty

The Appletonian takes the Cap Times to school regarding their linking of the tax burden to the childhood poverty rate.

This morning I did a regression analysis comparing the 50 states’ tax rankings with their childhood poverty rankings. The results: there is no relationship between the two.

If the Cap Times was right that more taxes lead to less poverty, there should be a negative correlation between the variables (i.e. the state that is first for taxes should be last for childhood poverty and the state that’s last in taxes should be first for childhood poverty, or a less dramatic relationship along those lines).

That’s not the case at all. A state’s tax ranking has essentially zero predictive value on what its childhood poverty rank is. To see just how little predictive value it has, check out the graph below.